January 2003

Livephish

Is this the direction bands may move towards in allowing bands to download their music? The ability to burn your own 3 cd set or mp3. Fifteen dollars is a reasonable price. Read how it is done. The musician Prince had posted an excellent article (Aug 02) of his views on copyright issues, appropriately titled "Nation of Thieves". I've recreated it here, original text and style intact - probably the only page on the net. View it here.

While we are somewhat on the subject of "file sharing", this is what Jupiter (research analyst company) says of the European record industry. Read the short article.

Jupiter suggests that the record industry is therefore faced with a dilemma. It doesn't want to alienate future customers by targeting individuals to close down peer-to-peer networks. Jupiter's own fieldwork points to the fact that over half (52%) of peer-to-peer users are under 25 years of age. Although they are not representative of the older, higher-spending consumers that are key to the record industry, they are the new generation of music buyers and are currently more likely to use download services online than buy entire albums in music stores.

Star Trek TNG

I am always interested in the "other side" of celebrities - their life off screen or other than the series or movie that made them famous. I'm a sci-fi fan and have enjoyed most of the star trek flavors. Enterprise is quite interesting but TNG is my favorite. Here are a few "fan sites" that are fairly well done. On the three of them I will link into the photo section and you can go from there to the bio link.

This is a snip from the Patrick Stewart site

To save money for training, he worked for a year as a furniture salesman; then, after consulting the professionals he had met, he enrolled in the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957 at age seventeen. He spent two years there, learning his craft and losing his accent. Stewart speaks of almost living a "double life" during this period, for while he spoke with Received Pronunciation professionally, he continued speaking with his native Yorkshire accent and dialect with family and friends.

After leaving school, Stewart was never out of work, despite a warning from an instructor who told him that his baldness would make him a young character actor rather than a juvenile lead. In fact, Stewart was able to land jobs by convincing directors that with a toupee he could play both, doubling his range and serving as "two actors for the price of one." His professional stage debut was at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln, in August of 1959, playing Morgan in a stage adaptation of Treasure Island.

A snip from Marina Sirtis site

Born in London to Greek parents, Marina began her passion for acting at the Royal Shakespeare Company affiliated Guild Hall of Music and Drama School. The Worthington Repertory Theatre company's production of Hamlet was Marina's entre into the theatre world. She went on to appear with a variety of European companies such as Coventry Rep's production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the role of Esmerelda and in The Rocky Horror Picture Show as Magenta.

And Jonathan Frakes - boldly went from acting to directing

Jonathan is a well-accomplished trombone player. He is a featured musician on the album "HOIST" by Phish. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Mr. Frakes is married to actress Genie Francis and resides in California with their two children.

Calendar

I surfed into this site and it is one of the better calendar sites on the net, both for content and simplicity. Most of the world uses the "Christian calendar" - but did you know there are two flavors - Julian and Gregorian. I can see why civilization did not adopt the Roman calendar.

According to tradition, the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar. This made the Roman year 355 days long. To make the calendar correspond approximately to the solar year, Numa also ordered the addition every other year of a month called Mercedinus. Mercedinus was inserted after February 23 or 24, and the last days of February were moved to the end of Mercedinus. In years when it was inserted, Mercedinus added 22 or 23 days to the year.

A fascinating site to browse. 1752 was the year Great Britain (and the colonies) accepted the Gregorian calendar. I also enjoy seeing our tax dollars at work, a government exhibit on Time.