Caterwauling

OMG, did you watch “American Idol” tonight? Holy shit, dude in the orange shirt/belt/socks who thought he was Ginuwine meets Usher (who was more realistically like either of those stars meets ballectomy) needed to go.

He did a terrible rendition of Michael “speaking of ballectomy” Jackson’s “She’s Out of My Life.” I mean, Kadi started howling when he was on TV!

But the funniest part of the two-hour show? When he said that he learned to sing using Randy and Paula’s DVD, “Ultimate Voice Coach.” I never saw Simon laugh so hard — he’s usually pretty damned smug, but tonight, it was so totally justified.

It was great — the kid even brought the DVD to the audition. After he was rejected, he took the DVD outside and pulverized the case with a hammer. Sweet!

Seriously, what is UP with all these tone-deaf fools going to these auditions? I know I can’t sing — shit, I am happiest when I’m driving with my earbuds in and singing on top of my the music blasting in my ears, because I? Can’t hear how bad I sound! Believe me, I KNOW I would make for an audition tape that America would laugh at for years to come, so I stay the hell home when I hear auditions are coming to the East Coast. I’m just glad, though, that others come out full-force, so I can say “at least I’m better than that.”

Excuse me while I go into convulsions without my daily fix of Tiff, as our webhost has unceremoniously asked her to leave after some moron complained about how she (was ultimately forced to) protect her intellectual property. Tom gives the details here, so I won’t rehash it.

But what I will say is that I’m displeased at the handling of the situation and that I have had four enjoyable years with that company, but if that’s the way they’re going to react to someone who’s not been a loyal, paying customer, well, see ya. Holding data hostage (even temporarily)? I thought they were above that. Really.

Insofar as the hotlinking issue, the Internet is not a creative place, sadly. Everyone’s always ripping off each others’ ideas and thoughts and now intellectual property. So, when said owner has tap-danced and asked nicely (repeatedly) to little avail, she had to take drastic measures (I say “drastic” tongue-in-cheek). So the image the hotlinkers saw wasn’t puppies and rainbows. That was the POINT, to scare off the thieves.

What Tom points out about bandwidth costs is an issue I struggle with because I like to provide large files on occasion. I don’t ask you to right-click-save-as for my health; it’s just my subtle way of saying that I’m willing to pay the bandwidth costs to host the larger files, but not willing to pay extra so you can stream them as well.

The point of weblogs, to me, is so that we can get a sort of kalidescope glimpse into other people’s lives. Sure, we will never get to see 100% of their personalities, but it’s through image files and audio and video and good old-fashioned storytelling that the otherwise-unknowns among us have not only a creative outlet, but also a way of putting our mark on the world — of not getting lost among the crowd — of being as special as our moms always told us we were. 😉

If someone tries to rob you in “real life” and you fight back, it’s self-defense. Likewise, if you go to lengths to protect your webspace and the contents of it, bravo. And if your hosting company is going to cave all pussy-like to some dumb bitch who was trying to STEAL an image in the first place, well, let me just say this. For all the business Tiff has given them and referred to them, well, we’re all happy to skip out the door behind her.

UPDATE

I turned off the comments but I brought them back. This entry is likely long forgotten, and that’s wonderful, but I think the discussion is worth reading/continuing.