Thinking aloud

So, I was playing around on my iPod touch the other day, searching YouTube via the iPod’s Wi-Fi capabilities. I’ve never been a fan of YouTube, mostly because watching video on my laptop seems inconvenient to me.

But on the iPod touch with that screen (there’s no other way to describe the quality of the iPod touch’s display) it’s as if the device, Wi-Fi and YouTube combine into a completely new medium.

I was searching for music videos, looking for alternate versions of classic music videos from Devo and Fatboy Slim, and came across this gem.

It doesn’t matter if you are a Fatboy Slim fan or not: this never-officially-released video is a spectacular combination of editing and timing. Check out the slow-motion at 2:10 and the Tommy-esque finale in which Angie leads hula-hooping acolytes, some of whom you almost expect to break out into a chorus of We’re Not Gonna Take It.

I emailed the star of the video,  Angie Mackman, and asked her for the back story about why this wasn’t released. Long story short, it seems a competition for the video had to go to a juggler for some reason. The official video for this song is also great, but there’s something about this version that is less contrived and, well, cooler than the very-strictly-cut-to-the-downbeat juggling video.

I wanted to make sure that readers of this blog check out an exciting new voice. My pals at Enigma have started blogging, and I think that their first post (at least the first post I didn’t write) is pretty compelling.

Clearly, I am involved in setting up their blogging efforts, but today when Joy and I were working on her post, I can tell you, I just sat back and watched it happen.

The blogging world is liberating for many software companies because it allows them to (finally!) express their raison d’etre directly, succinctly and forcefully. You can hear it in what Joy wrote today, and I hope there’s lots more to come from my new pals at Enigma.

One of my favorite New Wave tunes was New Toy by Lene Lovich which contained the memorable chorus “I want a new toy, Oh ay oh!” OK, so poetry it ain’t. But we loved dancing to it at Spit on Lansdowne Street.

Anyway, that chorus comes to mind tonight because I have just (finally!) upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.3.1 and installed a cool, new widget-capable theme. I love WordPress. Oh ay oh.

Oh, and by the way, I got an iPod touch, too.

“I’ve got to have it all until I’m complete…
I want a new toy (oh ay oh), to keep my head expanding…
I want a new toy (oh ay oh), nothing too demanding…”

Here, in case you need an 80s flashback, is a link to a YouTube recording of this memorable song.

Tonight, after a long day at work, for fun, I turned to an issue of Auto Week that I’d been saving to read up on the new Aston-Martin DBS. The only Aston-Martin I’ll ever come close to is the silver DB9 that some show-off uses as a daily driver (in the freakin’ snow!) to drop his sixth-grader off at my daughter’s school.

Yes, I have lusted after another man’s car. But nevermore. Look carefully at this photo. The driver’s side of the grill is misaligned. In the printed magazine, this is even more noticeable than in this online photo.

Yes, the press can go on for thousands of words about whether this car is a GT or a sports car, how it compares with Ferraris and how cool it was in Casino Royale. But not me….$256,000 seems a little rich to spend on a car whose marketing people would let this photo into the wild.