- Some bands aspire to greatness, some dream of affecting
social change and others……well, they intentionally write "stupid f*cking clunky lyrics"
and deliberately make "young, dumb and primitive" pop music. British
indie rockers The Vaccines clearly do
not fall into either of the first two categories, not with frontman Justin
Young admitting he enjoys lyrics that are "knowingly dumb" and
doesn’t aspire to make high-minded, thought-provoking music. Young has heard
the criticisms against his band after the release of their 2011 debut LP “What
Did You Expect From The Vaccines?” and doesn’t seem to have a beef with those
who called the album vapid and simplistic. “I like stupid f*cking clunky
lyrics. People probably don't realize how knowingly dumb they are. All the pop
music I like is young, dumb and primitive. I want to make that kind of music,”
he said. For a lead singer and songwriter who doesn’t exactly seem invested in
making historically significant music that will be remembered and having a
long, successful run on the music scene, one might imagine that Young and his
bandmates won't still be dragging themselves on tour around the world when
they’re in their 60s like the Rolling Stones and in fact, that’s true. "I
really like the idea of giving it up before it all goes downhill. But I also
quite like it when bands ride the storm – they fade into obscurity and then
come back. I can't think of a band who've been dignified over a whole career,
to be honest,” Young observed. His remarks definitely frame the band’s second
album, “The Vaccines Come of Age,” in an interesting light with its Sept. 3
release looming………
- The 2012 season has been a colossal disappointment for the
Philadelphia Phillies. The team entered the new season with World Series hopes,
but the
five-time defending National League East champion Phillies are in fourth place
in their division, 10 games below .500 at 54-64, 19 games behind the
first-place Washington Nationals and 11 games out of a wild-card spot. Perhaps
no player has embodied the uninspired vibe around the team this season as much
as three-time All-Star shortstop Jimmy Rollins. Rollins, who signed a
three-year, $33 million contract to return to the Phillies last offseason, is a 13-year veteran who was part of the
Phillies’ 2008 World Series-winning team. He’s also the same player with whom Phillies
manager Charlie Manuel had a private meeting after he did not run out a ground
ball in a recent game. Manuel and Rollins both acknowledged the meeting prior
to Thursday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers and both insisted their
sitdown was productive. "We have
two rules: Hustle and be on time," Manuel told reporters. "We'll see.
That's all I have to say. This is between Jimmy and me." Hmm, seeing as Rollins was nearly pulled from
the game after a leisurely run up the first-base line after hitting a routine
grounder to shortstop in the sixth inning of Wednesday's 9-2 loss to the Miami Marlins, being on time for a meeting or
for the team bus probably isn't the issue. Rollins even admitted his lack of
hustle, even if he tagged it with a weak excuse. "I was just upset before
I even got up there," Rollins said. "I was already out of it.
Mentally, just upset." He refused to explain why he was upset, but
conceded it was "not an excuse" for not running hard. Sources
have said this is not the first time that Rollins has been cited for lack of
hustle, but that the issue is magnified now because of how poorly the team is
playing. Having a clubhouse leader who is batting .246 with 14 home runs and 46
RBI AND doesn’t run out ground balls because his mind isn't in the game
probably isn’t helping matters………
- Twitter is gradually forgetting where it came from. The
more the microblogging site grows, the more it seems eager to distance itself
from the very developers who have helped it grow. The latest backbiting came Thursday
in the form of an announcement saying that certain app developers – many of whom contributed
heavily to Twitter's rapid ascent in the first place – were no longer welcome
in the Twitterverse. Tweetbot and Echofon were called out by name, leading other
programmers in Silicon Valley to blast Twitter’s unilateral decision to break
ties with its former allies. "I sure as hell wouldn't build a business on
Twitter, and I don't think I'll even build any nontrivial features on it
anymore," wrote Marco Arment, a developer who created Instapaper. "And
if I were in the Twitter-client business, I'd start working on another
product." Twitter might argue that these developers have essentially built
their own business on top of Twitter’s businesss, giving the popular
microblogging site the right to boot them whenever it wants. Still, the wide
scope of its restrictions on its application programming interface, or API,
were stunning. Tapbots, which makes the Tweetbot client, responded to the
announcement by informing users that it was not going away. "Tweetbot for
Mac is coming out soon, Tweetbot for iOS isn't going anywhere," the
company said in a post. Tweetbot creator Paul Haddad didn’t sound too offended
by the decision, conceding that “most people who work with other platforms (or)
partners realize that things can change at any moment and hopefully are able to
plan around that." Other developers were less tactful and blasted the
decision as unfair and somewhat vindictive. One outlet that will benefit from
Twitter’s new path is App.net, which raised more than $800,000 a few days ago
from over 12,000 contributors eager to see a more open environment for
developers. App.net boasts a list of more than 40 mobile and desktop apps and
utilities, with free tools available to make it easy to plug in code for every
major environment, including Python, PHP, Java, .Net, and JavaScript. Some Twitter
developers will not be affected by the new policy, which include new limits on
how many users applications may have and mandatory new display guidelines. If
developers do not play by the new rules, Twitter will threaten to revoke their application
key. A bigger question is whether Twitter users will take umbrage with the new
policy, given that nearly 80 percent of tweets are posted using Twitter's own
services, with the remainder through third-party clients……….
- Given that every taxi ride in Manhattan seems to cost at
least $40, it’s fair to say that the taxi cab industry is an important one in
New York City. Jamming deep-pocketed visitors or New Yorkers who think they’re
too good to ride with the masses on the subway is a staple of NYC life, so it
makes sense that the city recently unveiled plans to expand taxi service outside Manhattan. Unfortunately,
a state Supreme Court judge slammed the door on those plans Friday, ruling that
New York City's plan is unconstitutional. Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice
Arthur Engoron ruled that the plan violates the state constitution's "home
rule" provisions, which are designed to protect cities from undue
interference by state legislators. The state Legislature overstepped its bound,
Engoron ruled, when it enacted the plan after a failed attempt to get it
through the City Council. City lawyers vowed to immediately appeal the ruling,
which officials said would leave the city with a $1.46 billion hole in its
budget. The sale of 2,000 yellow-cab medallions was to earn the city
$635 million this fiscal year and $825 million more over the following two
years. Instead, the plan is back on hold as it was back in June after owners of
the city's signature yellow cabs sued. If it is ever enacted, the new plan
would allow the city to sell 18,000 permits giving livery cabs the right to pick
up passengers who hail them on streets in upper Manhattan and the other
boroughs. Currently, only yellow cabs can do that and yellow cab companies like
that arrangement. City Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky insisted
the fight was far from over. "The court's decision today is a great loss
to millions of New Yorkers outside of Manhattan, as well as for the
professional livery drivers whose ability to feed their families by providing a
popular service their communities want and deserve is now in jeopardy," he
said in a statement. On the other side of the
battle, the over-reaching Greater New York Taxi Association called the ruling
"a win for democracy, due process of law and the right of New Yorkers to
decide how their own city works." Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the
plan as a means of making travel safer, easier and cheaper for millions of
people while providing the city a much-needed cash infusion in tight budget
times. The income surge from selling livery cab "street hail" permits
for $1,500 to vehicles that are wheelchair-accessible will have to come from
another source and 18,000 livery drivers who could have bought permits to pick
up street hails above 96th Street in Manhattan and throughout the four other
boroughs will have to go without their added clientele………
- Grab your Huffy and pedal for women’s rights, ladies of
the Communist hellhole known as North Korea. Word on the street is that riding
a bicycle in public is now legal on the north end of the Korean Peninsula for
the first time since 1996, when cycling for women was banned in 1996 because the
activity wasn't regarded as sufficiently feminine by the male-dominated North
Korean regime. Reports from the despotic nation Friday claimed that women are
being allowed to ride bicycles for the first time for years, a relaxation of
laws that coincided with current despotic dictator Kim Jung Un's powerful
uncle, Chang Song-Taek, visiting Beijing to sign new deals to open up special
enterprise zones on the Chinese border with North Korea. While these zones have
existed for several years, they have remained largely undeveloped. That appears
to be changing as perhaps pleas from China to North Korea to reform the
latter’s stagnant, state-controlled economy in the same way China did 20 years
ago may have finally fallen on receptive ears. A possible visit from Kim Jong
Un to the Chinese capital could be in the works. With more cars and advertising
on Pyongyang's streets, promises by Jong Un’s regime to the masses of improved
economic conditions and the ability to officially work in factories in China
and send money home and the sight of North Korean women donning bike helmets
and peddling through the Communist-controlled streets of their homeland, maybe
North Korea really is changing. No one is sure why the female bicycle ban was
reversed, but 20 years from now, when a North Korean woman competes in the
Olympic cycling events and finishes dead last in a race no one watching on TV
even cares about, this will be hailed as the day when that dream was set in
motion………
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