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#5029 – quickie

went to the cherry blossoms yesterday with cynicalscribe, then out to dinner with her and bruno_boy, and spent today with producer_chris at the orioles game.

took photos of the baltimore boxing club’s boxing fights on saturday. that was… interesting. will have to talk more about that later.

took photos at both the cherry blossoms and at the boxing match, but won’t be able to edit those until at least friday — my trial of the latest version of aperture is up, so no editing for me. need to renew my account on flickr on friday too.

would say more now, but it’s time for bed.

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Why “Rickrolling” is So Popular

I had read about The KLF’s “The Manual” years ago, and then forgot about it, but a recent mention of it on the Macbreak Weekly podcast reminded me all about it. So, I poked around online and found the text of “The Manual”, and surprise of surprises it explains exactly why “Rickrolling” is so popular:

No records are bought in vast quantities because the lyrics are intellectually clever or deal in strange and new ideas. In fact, the lyrics can be quite meaningless in a literal sense but still have a great emotional pull. An obvious example of this was the chorus of our own record:

“Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who Doctor Who, in the Tardis Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who”

Gibberish of course, but every lad in the country under a certain age related instinctively to what it was about. The ones slightly older needed a couple of pints inside them to clear away the mind debris left by the passing years before it made sense. As for girls and our chorus, we think they must have seen it as pure crap. A fact that must have limited to zero our chances of staying at The Top for more than one week.

Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, however, are kings of writing chorus lyrics that go straight to the emotional heart of the 7″ single buying girls in this country. Their most successful records will kick into the chorus with a line which encapsulates the entire emotional meaning of the song. This will obviously be used as the title. As soon as Rick Astley hit the first line of the chorus on his debut single it was all over – the Number One position was guaranteed:

“I’m never going to give you up”

It says it all. It’s what every girl in the land whatever her age wants to hear her dream man tell her. Then to follow that line with:

“I’m never gonna let you down I’m never going to fool around or upset you”

GENIUS.

As soon as they had those lyrics written they must have known they could have taken out a block booking on the Number One slot.

What makes this amazing is that “The Manual” was written in 1988! So, as you can see, the basic building blocks used to make a pop song popular haven’t really changed in the last 20 years or so.

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#5029 – yay derby, it (hopefully) pays the bills

so i got an email in flickr today, apparently the grand raggidy roller girls are interested in using this photo as the basis for a bout poster:

Heartland Havoc Game 1

sweet!

i emailed back to find out how many posters will be printed and how big will the posters be, and if they have any other planned uses for the image so that i can put together a quote for them. (i thought about maybe just letting them use it for free, or really cheap, but that’s not exactly how you run a business! i think a 75% discount for WFTDA leagues is plenty good for both the leagues and for me.)

i mean, hell, i’ve got these photo quote documents i put together the other day, i might as well hope i get a chance to use them!

(besides, my trial run of aperture 2.0 ran out, so no more photo editing until i have $200 to spare, and my flickr account is up for renewal in 4 days. :P)

good news is that we should be getting our merit increases with the first paycheck in april, so my next paycheck should have my yearly raise on it.

i also got an email yesterday from holly gohardly about a roller derby-themed art exhibit in dc in july, so i’ll have to poke around and see what i need to do to promote myself there and maybe exhibit some stuff. that’d be neat!

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#5028 – technically awesome

got my technical writing formal report all banged out and uploaded tonight with 15 minutes to spare! had to be at least 5 pages, mine went to 11! (it’s technically 1 better than 10.)

didn’t even spell check, ‘cos technically that’s how i roll. actually, i lie. i forgot to, and then i spell-checked it and reuploaded it, so it’s technically, as the kids say, “all good!”

i think i flourish under deadlines.

now for a treat! hm. jellybeans? why not?