In response to Rebecca’s call for bloggy Valentine sonnets

How do I blog thee? Let
Me count the odious ways.
As a producer of sweat
Thou compares to a summer’s day.

I blog thee a fool,
a villain, a back door
spammer, a stool
pigeon turned crack whore.

You are so shreddible,
A vampire twice-bitten,
a journalist non-credible,
an eater of kittens.

Yes, each hateful word, suspect or ratty
Does, my love, boost you at technorati.

Rebecca gives double points if you podcast it, but that would require making the thing scan, so never mind.

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The Koufax Awards, named for the lefty pitcher, is letting us vote for our favorite lefty blogs. Lots of categories. [Thanks to W. David Stephenson, nominated in the Best Single Issue Blog category, for the link.]

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This is an astonishing photo, taken from on board the Columbia, of the earth at sunset. (Thanks, Mas!)

Micah Sifry, however, points out that Snopes says it’s a phony. Damn truth! Always getting in the way of our fun!

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On Saturday, Leah and I walked from Union Square to Alamo Square, home of the “painted ladies,” AKA, “Where Full House was taped.” Leah was wearing her Ashley and Mary Kate t-shirt. I saw part of a “Full House” once and found it unbearably dopey, but, well, what are you going to do with kids today, especially when they’re 20 and have a complex, post-Modern relationship to the media crap that forms a mythic background in which they themselves don’t believe?

From there we went to the far side of the Golden Gate Bridge and walked back to the SF side. It was a perfect day for it.

Then we went to Haight-Ashbury, a part of the world that makes me embarrassed to have been a hippie-hanger-on … I didn’t put flowers in my hair, cut off the soles of my shoes and come to SF for the Summer of Love, but I did the best I could while still managing to be a middle class Jew from Long Island at a preppy college in the middle of Pennsylvania. At this point, going to Haight-Ashbury is an occasion for explaining why all that hippie shit wasn’t as dumb as it looks.

We ate at a restaurant with perhaps the worst name in history: The Squat ‘n’ Gobble. Fortunately, they allowed us to sit in a chair and when we refused to peck at grains of food on the ground, they consented to let us pay them for crepes. Pretty good.

We headed back to the hotel, stopping in a couple of stores looking for a gift for our neighbor Judy who had gotten us a good deal on the hotel room. We went to the Golden Era (572 O’Farrell) for an excellent fake-meat meal — sweet and sour “chicken” and “beef” with broccoli. Delicious.

We fell asleep watching Team America in the hotel room. [Technorati tags: San Francisco]

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Schismatik, a new music label, has launched. It seems to me to say the right things, and to say them emphatically. But I’m not yet 100% convinced. (The company blog is here.)

Schismatik gives to the artist half of the price of a downloaded album and half of the profit on the sale of a physical CD. They expect the price of either to be $8, and the highest cost of manufacturing a physical CD to be $2.25. Obviously that’s much much more money going to the artist than in a standard label contract. But why 50% and not 40% or 20%? What service is Schismatic providing that justifies its cut? It doesn’t record artists. It doesn’t promote them beyond putting their work up on a site. It doesn’t give them an advance. The CDs are manufactured on demand so there’s no inventory cost and, essentially, no risk on Schismatik’s part. So, is 50% the right amount? And is $8/CD the sweet spot? I don’t know.

I think Schismatik’s attitude toward copyright is enlightened (= they agree with me), but I wish they addressed it more forthrightly. The term “copyright” does not show up in their FAQ, not even in the question “Do artists at Schismatik own their own material?” A: “…the artist always owns all of their music. The only powers granted to Schismatik are the powers to sell and license (non-exclusively) the artist’s product.” Artists can terminate their contract at any time and get a copy of their master tapes. And artists can simultaneously sell their music any other way they want without having to tithe Schismatik. So it sure seems that there’s no phony baloney going on with copyright. Fantastic. I wish they posted a copy of their standard contract, though.

BTW, the label is donating half of this month’s profit to American Jewish World Service for Sudan relief. Of course, how much profit is a label going to make in its first month of existence, with seven bands on its roster? This offer actually raised, not lowered, my cynico-skeptical antennae. Yes, that’s how jaded I’ve become on the Internet.

It’s entirely possible — even likely — that my concerns are unfounded and unfair, and that I’m being unrealistic about the “business model” that’ll work. But 50% seems like a lot for getting listed on a music portal.

I claim no expertise and am way open to being wrong about this. In fact, I’d love to be wrong. I’m so sick of the incumbents and thus feel crappy about worrying out loud about what seems to be a noble-hearted newcomer. A few tweaks to their FAQ might settle my doubts…

Schismatik replies in the comments section.

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Go to MSN’s Mappoint site by clicking here.

Tell it you want directions from Haugesund in Norway to Trondheim in Norway. Click “Get directions.”

SPOILER:

[I find out about this through an email that was forwarded.]

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We finished off yesterday by going to The Stinking Rose, and came out reeking of garlic. Mmmm. Then we went to Ghirardelli Square and came out reeking of garlic-tinged chocolate. Then we went to see “Hitch,” which was surprisingly delightful. Will Smith will be president in 2016, at the latest…

I’m having a little upper back episode that was actually helped by sitting in one of them magic fingered massagey chairs at Sharper Image. I usually just find them creepy, but this one seems to have rolfed off the edge of the pain. That and massive doses of ibuprofen. Why, I can almost look to my left today!

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Halley‘s got a new blog: GamerMom. It’s about being a mom of a kid who plays video games.

My two cents: I’m about two hours into Half Life 2 and am ready to declare it the Greatest Game in History.

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My daughter Leah, 20 yrs old as of Tuesday, flew out last night. She’s never been to San Francisco, so we’re spending today and tomorrow as 100% pure tourists.

Today we took a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf, went on a one-hour boat tour of the Bay, waved at the sea lions, went through Ripley’s Believe It or Not (much of which causes me to opt for the latter alternative), walked through Chinatown, had a mediocre Chinese lunch, had a fantastic, warm coconut bun, walked to and through the Cartoon Museum, and tried to calm the uppe back spasms of the more senior of us. Soon we’re off to The Stinking Rose to eat as many garllic-themed foods as possible.

Too much fun.

By the way, the concierge at our hotel thought we should get reservations for the Stinking Rose restaurant because it’s so popular around Valentine’s Day. What sort of weird, twisted romantic couple goes to a garlic restaurant for Valentine’s Day? You might as well go to The International House of Cold Sores. [Technorati tags: San Francisco]

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“A lonely young star has been discovered fleeing from the Milky Way galaxy at the most fantastic speeds ever seen, and Harvard astronomers say it is doomed to wander throughout the universe for the rest of its life.”

This is the lede of a story in today’s SF Chronicle by its science editor, David Perlman.

A little heavy on the anthropomorphism, wouldn’t you say?

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