So with Sick as a Dog, I'm half done releasing the source for my album I Don't Know What I'm Doing. I've gotten a lot of remixes and I want to release a compilation album of my favorites so far to show off a lot of the great work that's been done. This would hopefully be followed later by a second part with remixes of the rest of the songs if remixer interest keeps up. The plan is to offer the remix album for free download on the net and I'll also burn and mail copies to those who want them for $5 including shipping like I've done with Outside the Inbox and my album.

There's still time to get your mixes in if you're interested in being on this thing. Send them to me. I can tell you now that I'm probably not going to pick too many songs that stick closely to the original songs' structures. I want this album to be significantly different than mine.

Over the next while I'll start sorting through the mixes and getting in touch with the remixers to make sure they're cool with being on the compilation. Also thinking of a catchy title is of top priority as well.

Gaim is an open source instant messenger, which is compatible with AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ and more. A few months ago Steven Garrity told me they were looking for new event sounds and asked if I'd be interested in contributing something. It sounded like a fun challenge and the work of Steven (and associates) helping with the design of Mozilla Firefox has been real intriguing to me. I like the idea of getting artists involved in the open source design process because the interface often gets neglected which drives away the users who don't care how awesome it is under the hood.

Steven and I agreed on the requirements for good instant messenger sounds, and they're fairly demanding: the sounds must be communicative, attention-grabbing and at the same time can't get annoying after the user has heard them a thousand times. Tricky!

For a week or so I came up with sound ideas and Steven gave me a lot of helpful feedback. I'd tweak the sounds, throw a bunch out, and we'd go through them again. It was actually a lot more work than you'd expect for some tiny bleeps and boops. Here's the sound pack we came up with: bradsucks-gaimsounds.zip

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. It was my first attempt at any sort of UI sound design and I think they balance sexiness and functionality pretty well -- they get your attention but are mellow enough to keep from getting annoying too quickly.

A couple of weeks ago I wound up in the Gaim IRC channel and was told that the sounds have been committed to the Gaim 2.0 CVS, which means they should be the new default sounds for Gaim 2.0 whenever it's released. So I'm pretty happy about that and thanks a lot to Steven for getting me involved in this project in the first place.

Also: by being included with Gaim the sounds are now under the GPL, I believe. So if you're an open source developer and need some sounds, feel free to use them.

Update: Steven has posted a before and after of the Gaim sounds for y'all here.

What that circus clown music is called - I always wondered this. Also, best transcription ever: "doot-doot-doodle-oodle oot doot do do".

After extensive hunting years ago, I came to own an IKEA Jerker desk. To this day it's the most useful, awesome and affordable desk I have ever seen. And to top it all off, its name is Jerker. I always thought it was only my friends and I who loved these desks, but apparently not: BEHOLD! THE SHRINE TO THE IKEA JERKER DESK! which includes a lot of Jerker links and pictures.

I'm liking this here Japanese Death Poetry.

Esperanto Music on the Internet (via Bifurcated Rivets) (What the hell is Esperanto?)

Look And Feel Years Younger (2004 Mix) is a remix I did of Look And Feel Years Younger. All my attempts at making a super crazy remix failed so I was left with just making little changes. Like I hyped up the drums, mixed up the verses a bit, dropped the solo and changed the ending. Then a few other things here and there that I can't remember.

Well, that is now in the bag. It was a pretty good experience in that I learned an awful lot since I had 100% no clue about live sound. I got some real helpful advice and a better idea of what the hell the deal is with playing live. Didn't really make me feel like a flawless rock god, but that I guess is what the booze is for.

Matt points out a funny blog phenomenon with the replies to this Overhaulin' post, where people are acting as though the author of the blog is actually somehow related to the TV show. I don't have anything as cool as that, but I've been meaning to point out that, judging by the comments, my blog seems to have become the #1 resource for disgruntled OfficeMax customers and employees due to this rant I posted back in January.

What's weird is seeing a Google ad show up when you search for "brad sucks" on Google.

Some random emails from the weekend have gone missing. You may want to re-send. Did the interview chat thing on halfliferadio.com last week. It was fun and also interesting.

Got my MPD-16 drum pad thing on Friday and it didn't come with a USB cable. I will be exchanging it later this week for a unit that actually comes with all its parts.

My dog of the last 10+ years (named Penny) was put down today due to cancer and general sufferin'. It is a drag but it is also okay.

This study claims that music sharing isn't negatively effecting CD sales. Here's a big clip for those of you too lazy to read the article:

For the study, released Monday, researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero," they wrote.

"We find that file sharing has only had a limited effect on record sales," the study's authors wrote. "While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing."

Unlikely that this is the final word on the subject, but still interesting.

Wow, I have a lot of poetry to read now. Thanks to everyone who suggested and emailed me stuff. I'll have to ask about good pulpy sci-fi books later.

I'm retiring, says George Michael:

Pop star George Michael is abandoning the music business to release his songs online for free instead.

The multi-millionaire singer said he will never make another album for sale in record shops because he does not need the cash and does not enjoy fame.

Fans will be given the option to make donations online in exchange for downloading the tracks, and the proceeds will be given to charity.

Neato.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

Anybody complaining about the current state of the American music industry should read this Billboard article about Iraqi pop stars:

Yousef fled the country after Uday had a group of girls beat him up at a concert, Khaled said. Former workers at Shebab recall other incidents, one involving Uday urinating on a singer.

and:

Like other exile singers, Bahr would return each year to sing for Saddam. "We had no choice so I think we can be forgiven. Most people understand this," he said.

Thankfully the RIAA has never urinated on me or had girls beat me up.

Your 99c belong to the RIAA - Steve Jobs. This article in The Register is a little cynical sounding but it opens with a quote I like:

Wasn't the Internet, this weightless kingdom of bits and bytes, supposed to make distribution costs just vanish?

The author of this article seems really deeply angry at major record labels and possibly just angry in general. He also seems totally bewildered at some basic ideas in business. But I think I sympathize in that I find this whole iTunes universe totally bizarre and unnatural. To me it seems too much like the old decidedly F'd up model dressed up to look like something new. Maybe it'll stick, but right now it just feels like a step backwards to me and that technology + progress is going to lay the smack down on it any day now.

I've hastily put together a gallery finally. It has some art and things that nice folks have sent in. If anyone has anything to add, it would be awesome of you to send it in.

This has been a tremendously awful week. Staggering proportions of suck. The Outside the Inbox master will be mailed to Cafe Press tomorrow providing I don't die on the way to the post office.

Well, I thought I was going to be really hard-up for songs for Outside the Inbox but at the last moment lots of submissions came in and they are so awesome. A few people have asked for some more time so if you thought your dreams of being on the compilation was lost forever, hurry up and it can still be a reality.