My old friends Ron and Zim have been turning me on to the BBC series TopGear.

They agreed on this 15-minute piece as the show’s best.

I could absolutely do without the last 1:30 — the studio stuff. In fact, I didn’t even watch the last :30 or so.

But the rest of it? Good Lord! I am convinced that it’s the best television I’ve seen in ages. The shooting is gorgeous (if occasionally rough), as are the editing, writing, and performances. It’s smart and funny and compelling as hell. A real revelation to me. I felt compelled to share.

I admit to taking boyish pleasure in watching cars get bashed about. But this piece rises way above that.

I added “more” tags to the longer posts. I’ll be doing it in my own posts from here out and encourage others to do the same.

I’m about to start tweaking the design — the white-on-black text, for instance, is annoying. Text is too small. And so on. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on design and ease of use. It’ll take me a few days to bring myself up to speed on how CSS and PHP work.

The phrase I’d use is, ahem, ragged glory. Not such a stretch, really, as CSNY must have been one of the Northen Hemisphere bands to have influenced the Mutants’ vocal arrangements. Okay, a stretch. But my friend Peter Bull heard the Swingle Singers in some those arrangements, which was spot on. Overall, a stunning show — my second in a row at the venue, even thought I find it a problematic and unwelcoming place. (Broken Social Scene’s last night there was hands-down the best rock show I’ve seen in five years, maybe more.)

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(cross-posted from http://syncretisthasablognow.blogspot.com/)

a few years ago - basically, within about 3 days of getting one of the first iPods - I decided to put my whole cd collection into a digital jukebox. I’m no dj shadow when it comes to record collecting, but even a fellow who’s just moderately interested in music can come up with a few thousand cds and records over the years without trying too hard. I made a project out of it, took a stack of cds in to work with me every day for like 6 weeks, and had my laptop convert them while I did my job.

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Please STFU, okay?

Sincerely,
Rick

[HT Tom Tomorrow via Kos.]

It’s high time to stop talking and get this damned thing off the ground.

I’m going to consider the site to be in “beta mode” for the next few weeks. In that time I hope to get the core contributors signed up and posting a few things. Then I’ll do an email blast to try to generate some traffic. Around the time my PBS show airs in October, I’ll try to generate more buzz, and I’ll probably start including a reference to the blog in my bio.

Broadly, I’m looking for posts in three categories:

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