Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

What I did this weekend:

Before the blogosphere echo chamber shatters itself with hype, perhaps those frothing over the impact of blogs on society should take a deep breath and read about how most Americans have never heard of them.
A tidbit to entice you -> “But as of late February, when this poll was conducted, only 3% of Americans said they read blogs every day. Fewer than one in six, 15%, read blogs at least a few times a month.”
Let the flames begin!

Occurred today at the office:
Will: Hey Mike, happy Star Wars day.
Me: Star Wars day?
Will: Yes, May the Fourth be with you.
Me: Doh…

My father, who collects Victorinox Classic knives, will probably be spending my inheritance on confiscated knives.
For more airport security confiscated stuff, try this eBay search.
Linkage via Boing Boing

I love mashups and I love mixes. The only thing I could possibly love more is a mix of mashups!
For those that don’t know, a mashup is the mixing to two songs to intertwine. Like the music from one song mixed with the lyrics from another song. A mix is the blending of two songs into each other.
On the local radio station Indie 103.1 is a weekly show called The Smash Mix, which is a half hour long mix of mashups. DJ Paul Vhas been doing a great job for the last several weeks with the Smash Mix and keeping it entertaining. His mix on April 15th for Tax Day was brilliant.
The mix airs on Fridays at 5:30-6:00pm and repeats at 9:30-10:00pm on Indie 103.1. They have a good streaming feed, so even non-Angelenos can listen in. Personally, I record it weekly with my Griffin Radioshark.
The best place to find the mix is at CultureDeluxe under DJ Paul V. You can also find the mixes at FleetwoodMash, scroll down to DJ Paul V.
There is even a Smash Mix podcast feed at Alohadude.net, for those podcastingly inclined.
I wrote to DJ Paul and asked how he made the mixes, I assumed it was all produced in a digital audio workstation software package. It’s not, it’s mixed LIVE. Here’s DJ Paul’s reply:

I guess I should let people know this more:
All Smash Mixes are made & mixed live – CD deck to CD deck (usually 4 decks tho). I’m not mixing them live on the air, but I pre-make them during the week.

But there’s no audio software involved at all. I might take a stab trying Cool Edit soon, but I haven’t even installed the program yet.

I kinda like that there’s a live and real DJ element to the mixes, even if they could be perfected using software.

Ciao for now….PV

To me, this is the remix culture I love. Sure translating speeches into different languages via Creative Commons licenses is a cool idea, but it a bit dull compared to rocking out to tunes by a great DJ…
There are those that don’t like Indie 103.1 because it’s owned by Entravision and has ties to Clear Channel, but I love it. This is some real creativity and great radio pumping out on Indie.
If loving the Smash Mix on Indie 103.1 is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

It’s a rainy morning here at Cruft Manor. To bring you up to speed on the latest developments, here’s a quick update.
We got a dog. Err, well I should say, while I was off at NAB in Las Vegas, Michele and the girls got a dog. Michele has the story and picture over on her site.

I was not 100% in favor of getting a dog at this time, but you I’ve learned not to fight the inevitable. The dog is very cute, but I was suprised to find that Michele saved a dog with no tail.

I don’t know if the dog lost it’s tail, is a strange no-tail mutant dog, or her breed of dog has no tail. I don’t even know what kind of dog, young Piper is. All I know is that a dog without a tail is strange.
Next on the news front is Mira losing her teeth. Yes, at 6 years old, Mira has lost both of her bottom front teeth.

Even Michele had to admit, Mira is no longer a baby, she is indeed a big girl now.
On the household tech front, the old Whirlpool dishwasher slowly died. For several years, it has only worked in Heavy Wash cycle and no other way. We bit the bullet and with the advice of Papa Tony, we bought a Maytag washer with Jetclean® II and Quiet Series™ 300.
In the brief time the old dishwasher was removed, I snapped a picture of the empty space in the counter, revealing the layers of paint and age in our 56 year old house.

Lastly, the trailer for Serenity, the movie based on the show Firefly, is out. Check it out.

This is the computer in our kitchen. It is a hacked Virgin computer from the dot-boom era.
It’s slowing dying and I plan to replace it. The computer is easy to build, but a simple 10″ LCD monitor is tough to find.
15″ LCDs are easy to find, but 10″ LCDs are quite hard to find for a reasonable ( <$200 ) price. Any suggestions?

What I see first thing Monday morning at my desk:

It’s going to be a long week.
Update: People, that’s the unread messages AFTER spam filtering.

A couple weeks ago, my good friend Len had his yearly Crawfish Boil. I’ve written about it in the past.
This year I brought my video camera and was able to record what really goes on.
I now present The Truth about Crawfish Boils (1 MB wmv).

This made me laugh this morning.
Loyal Cruft reader Ben told me about a great article on Dr. Pepper, the Lando Calrissian of sodas. Thanks Ben!
Alex, another Loyal Cruft reader, passes on a link about business jargon. Sadly, I hear this crap all day long…

Anonyblog is back after some password issues and my derelict stewardship of the site.
I was surprised at dinner last with Len & Monique that the upcoming XXX movie wasn’t staring Vin Diesel. Ice Cube in the new XXX. I’m so there.
Lastly, in a bid to adopt a dog from a rescue group, my wife Michele aka Scarymommy, posted photos of our house on her weblog. You can see Cruft Manor in all it’s glory. Of course, Mr. P, will have some issue with this…
And in World of Warcraft:

My alchemy skill roxxors.