October 2005 Archives

Yesterday, I discovered GreatestJournal (GJ). It's a clone of LiveJournal (LJ) -- it uses LiveJournal's Open Source code -- but it's totally free. There is no way to obtain a paid account. GJ gives you all of LJ's paid features for free. Instead, they put targeted Google ads on your user info page (not on the actual blog) which is out of the way and acceptable to me. Sounds great, right?

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that their terms of service and rules for posting are much stricter than LJ's. There's no freedom of expression. They even have a rule that explicitly states that images of people cannot have more than 75% of their skin showing. Photo Gallery users cannot upload digitally manipulated images (i.e. text added to a photograph) or videos (movie clips pieced together from different frames.)

Seriously. I kid you not.

While I would not recommend Greatest Journal for mature or sophisticated users, I do recommend it for children (under the age of 18) because there are protective measures in place to guard against immaturity and general stupidity. Plus, the price tag won't set you back a week on your allowance.

round_ruckus (of bong bong bong fame) released 6 new tracks today. I highly recommend education and coffee shop. Both of these songs were originally slated to appear on his debut album, but now they are available as free downloads on his web site.

Education (rap) is round_ruckus' answer to Jin Tha MC's Learn Chinese, but round_ruckus takes it to the next level by explaining the meaning of every Cantonese expletive I've ever heard. The lyrics flow seamlessly between Chinese and English so unless you are a native speaker of both languages, it might take a few listens before you pick up any Chinese.

Coffee shop (a cappella) is a pining love ballad about a girl who works at Tim Hortons (a Canadian coffee shop chain.) The back up singers are actually 4 copies of round_ruckus' own voice. Once again, round_ruckus seamlessly inserts Chinese into his lyrics. If you listen carefully, you will find that "wo ai ni" (Mandarin for "I love you") is stealthily interchanged with the phrase "what I need."

I am now the proud owner of a Tent Cot. I will be using it at Red White and Blue Beach in Santa Cruz this weekend. Whee...! It's been 9 years since I've last gone camping. This should be fun.