blog-cation

Coming back from blog-cation next week!

Upcoming:
The bees in the roof
Ten worst record covers ever
Witty quips
etc.

The "Classic" View that never was

Minus Barbara Walters, plus Bette Midler. Could this have been a recipe for success? Star and Lisa look bummed, Joy looks like a jealous older sister, and Meredith has something on her hand. Bette, of course, looks divine.

Which reminds me, starting next week I'll be posting the top 10 album covers I hate. So far, the list includes one from Midler, and 2 from Al DeMeola.

Sometimes I Feel like Cathy During Bathing Suit Season

Music journalism is singularly awful. I read a review this afternoon of some indie rock band where the author compared "the scrappy fivesome's" sound to" The Pretty Things, Television, Chuck Berry and 80s SoCal punk".

This is totally lazy uninformed referentialism. The only bands that sound like Chuck Berry are from Japan. Nobody sounds like a combination of all of these things. 80s SoCal punk is not a valid reference. I went to the band's website, and they sound like an ipod crossed with the Violent Femmes.

Maybe Erik Spiekermann can redesign journalism too.

German PC Magazine redesigned by Germans

I guess PC Professionell decided to not look like a totally crappy PC magazine anymore. Unfortunately, their website is still touting a classic look. But hey, kudos Spiekermann! Now will you come over here and fix our periodicals? Seriously. Sigh.

I used to get a couple of magazines like this from going to events like LinuxWorldCon and MacWorld and they're almost all terrible looking. The ads are even worse -- but that's an entirely different thing.