GeneratedMadness

First and foremost, hopefully those of you within the US are enjoying some turkey and time with friends or family - maybe both.

Secondly, I recently moved to Austin, Texas, and haven't really posted since I moved. It's kind of funny that my first post since the move comes from a computer at my parents house since I flew back to the land of corn in Indiana for thanksgiving.

I'll get back on it here once I get in a groove.

I fell behind on posting this month, and have to post a song a day to get the complete 10 song playlist out in the open for this month. I really like this song by The Airborne Toxic event, and I'm not sure why. It gradually gets more exciting as it gets closer to the end with the music gaining energy. There is a borrowed U2 guitar riff played throughout by the non-lead guitarist. The bass guitar player uses a bow at the beginning of the song to play the guitar which you can see in the video of a live performance on Conan featured below. Maybe it's the combination of all of these things.

I remember back in middle school, junior high, and high school that we would get Big Gulps like it was our job. In college, not so much. After college, not at all. I don't even get variations of the Big Gulp like the super-sized drink at McDonald's or the Biggie drink at Wendy's.

Is it the health kick that we are all on? Is our economy that bad? Is it because we all know that drinks cost restaurants pennies to make, and they turn around and sell them to us for $1 or more? Is it because Red Bull, Monster, and other energy drinks have badass reputations, and kids feel cooler drinking from the blue and silver can with red bulls on it instead of the historic, large plastic cup?

Maybe you outgrow the Big Gulp Big Spenders Club once you reach a certain age where you have a sweet paycheck coming in and you can actually afford things that cost more than a $1 at a gas station. Maybe I am just out of touch with the Big Gulp trend, and sales are still coming in. I haven't seen any hard figures to prove or disprove my theory that 64 ounces of caffeine and fructose syrup is just too much.

Besides, kids these days are so jacked up on ADD pills and other meds that they probably don't need to get their kicks from a ginormous soft drink. Whatever the reason for the decline in Big Gulp appeal I am declaring the Big Gulp dead. Pour one out for your homie.

You may have heard this song on the radio as it does receive some air time, but if you haven't seen the video check it out below. Hilarious lyrical representations. If you enjoy it, and are into songs where the lyrics are acted out (we won't judge you) check out the more popular mimed version of Torn by Natalie Imbruglia - I used to have a crush on her even though her music is awful.

Last night at the annual family fall cookout my 1 and a 1/2 year old nephew found out that fire is hot, but apparently this wasn't a big deal to him. As my older brother was holding his cake with 27 candles burning on it, Xavier stepped right up to the cake to see what was going on. He held his position for awhile, and then the curiosity got the best of him.

He basically grabbed at the fire, and held his hand in the flame for a good 2 seconds. The fingers were full on in the flame, not just on top or to the side. My crazy old grandma dove at him and probably broke her hip, and Xavier pulled his hand out of the fire as she startled him. He looked at the black marks on his fingers, put his hand down, and started smiling and running around jibber-jabbing as usual. Did not even phase him.

Well, we now know he has at least one bar trick in his pocket to bust out later in life to amaze and woo drunk girls at his local watering hole.

I don't know if these guys would be qualified as hippies, folksies, or mountain people, but I enjoy a good banjo tickling from time to time and these guys deliver. Cool lo-fi music video. Oh, there is a bit of an intro, and the song actually starts around 1:39. Get out your Bonnaroo attitude and enjoy.

I was over at Engadget this morning reading up on the happenings in gadget world, and I came across this little ditty about a $250 guitar controller for the upcoming release in the Guitar Hero video game series, World Tour. Logitech is releasing a controller made out of premo materials that are normally reserved for ummm.... real guitars.

Wow.

At what point is a girl going to walk into a guy's dorm room and see his $250 guitar toy, and say "OMG, you play guitar?" And he will be able to respond by saying, "Yea, check out my axe." He will then fire up his GAME system, plug in his GAME controller, and play a song in the GAME. At some point in the future no one will question this as any different from playing an actual guitar, an INSTRUMENT. In the future tapping five multi-colored buttons to the beat of popular songs or your own musical creations will get you laid.

Why? Because others and I are starting to see these toy guitars as instruments similar to a MIDI keyboard controller that many hip-hop artists use to create repetitive beats strung together with lyrics on top that come together into multi-platinum tracks that are featured on Casey Kasem's Top 40. I can even buy into this argument without drinking a six pack with Joe and Sarah Palin.

With the new in-game studio featured in World Tour players can actually create their own guitar track, bass track, percussion track, and vocal track. They can then use a GarageBand-esque program to edit the tracks, add effects, and actually "use the guitar as a MIDI controller" (quote from the game's creators featured in a video on their website).

Is this as artistic and pure as playing a song on a guitar with 5 strings (and many more frets) as opposed to 5 buttons? I guarantee that those who play acoustic or electric guitar would say this is a laughable question, and I kind of agree. Is creating a song in the new video game studio with the connected controllers any different than what Timbaland does in the studio? They are fundamentally the same processes with different levels of complexity.

So, does this justify spending $250 for a guitar controller for a video game? If you view it as a music creation controller I guess you could, but I doubt it will have any added benefits over the cheap plastic one that comes with the game.

You could always buy the game, use the plastic controller that comes with it, and drop the $250 on a decent acoustic guitar or an electric guitar and low wattage amp. Give the real thing a try.

Mark Cuban has helped to launch BailoutSleuth.com, a website devoted to providing details on the bailout, who is getting paid, and where else your money is going to. In his post announcing the new website over at BlogMaverick.com he talks about how the auditors are already failing to do their job:

"if you take a trip over to Bailoutsleuth you can see that its already time to call BS. In the first contract handed out, in this case to Bank of NY Mellon Corp, the compensation section is blacked out."

After reading the articles this week about Freddie Mac paying lobbyists in 2005 to shut down regulatory bills, and now the beginning of shady documentation with intentionally blacked out sections it is going to be ugly as this is only the tip of the iceberg. This whole situation is turning into a big EPIC FAIL, but we appreciate the effort by Cuban and the team at BailoutSleuth.com trying to keep unethical bastards honest - or at least accountable.

I was addicted to this song two months ago, and it still receives quite a bit of airtime. Coconut Records is the one man band of Jason Schwartzman - yea, that actor in Rushmore and Slackers among other flicks. Cool song, and the video features skateboarder/artist Mark Gonzales putting on an interesting exhibit.

I absolutely hate going from website to website logging in to view balances or pay bills. At the same time I feel more at ease knowing that if I have to go through the trouble of entering my username and password and answering an additional security question or two my account should by relatively safe. I'm all about convenience and ease of use, though, which is why I am trying out PageOnce.

PageOnce is basically a service that allows you to see your current credit card balances, utility or service company bills, mobile minutes and bill, and even your Netflix queue. They also allow you to add your Twitter or MySpace accounts so you can check for recent activity in the less important yet more time consuming area of social networking sites (FaceBook was not available as of late last week, but they are working on it with the FB team). For this to work you obviously have to provide login information for all of your most secure accounts which some people may be apprehensive about doing. I was until I got into the details.

Did They Seek Me Out?
No. They did not send me an email, and I did not click on an advertisement on some random website to find out about them. So, I ruled out a fancy phishing front. I actually found out about the service while checking out some recent posts on Scobleizer's blog, who is a trusted source among the tech community. He actually interviewed a member of the PageSource team in a video for FastCompany that you can check out to learn more about the service.

What type of security do they use?
They have a great page that is easily accessible from their homepage that discusses their security that is in place that you can check out if you do not trust the pictures of security certifications that they display (which you should not on any site).

Should I be worried about having all of my accounts available from one place?
Probably. I still am. It is nice being able to login and see all of my balances and due dates right on one page, and it is very easy to add your different types of accounts. However, it now only takes one login to access all of my most secure accounts. Is the convenience worth the trade-off? Also, if you are the type of person who loses their cell phone twice a month like my younger brother in college you may want to hold off on adding the iPhone app for PageOnce.