Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

…at least that’s what WordPress antes up for you with when you load it over your existing previous blog.

I know, I’ve put off the change for as long as I could, but conradzero.com was licking/locking/lacking and WordPress seemed the simplest route for upgrading. 

Which begs the question, “So Z, why the change from Blogger to WordPress?”

Firstly, the proprietariness of Blogger (owned by Google) made me sad. There were many things about Blogger (some functional and some aesthetic) that either I couldn’t figure out, were not simple to implement, or were simply unimplementable, and they are none-too-keen on helping out self-hosted blogs like conradzero.com.  It seems that Blogger really wants people to host their blogs from their own blogspot.com. Those blogs get all the fancy Web2.0 drag-n-drop functionality, themes and plugins, while those who DARE to move their blogs to their own hosted site get punished with limited functionality and meager documentation. You want to create a Categories List? HA! Whatever. Meanwhile, WordPress is wide-open (source) and documented to the hilt, with a thriving community making themes and plugins galore. 

One of the bigger problems I had with my self-hosted Blogger blogs is the commenting system. Taking you off to some Lame-O Generic-O page for login and Captcha verification kinda wrecks the experience. WordPress blogs just seem more…open. Just look at the giant, friendly, open space below for filling in comments! And with some cool plug-ins, I should have some comment ratings system up before too long, not to mention the ability to recognize popular posts and avid commenters. All in all, it seems like a more interactive experience is possible; a bit more of a ‘community’ as it were.

You can’t step read into the same stream blog twice. – Heraclitus Zero

Another issue with self-hosted Blogger blogs is Search. I fought with Google/Blogger’s Search API, and discovered ”Featured” Google links rudely implanted in my search results. Actually, they’re YOUR search results, since you’re more likely to search here than I am. I’m all about Google/Blogger making a couple $$ off people who have their sites hosted on their blogspot servers, but Hey! I’m paying the hosting bill here, and I’m doing the site maintenance! Keep outta my search results! Crimeny, they already own most of my e-mail/calendar/contacts/docs/soul and with their recent purchase of FeedBurner and GrandCentral, they also own my rss and my voicemail. [sarcasm]It’s a good thing Google isn’t Evil![/sarcasm]

And the price difference is nil. The only drawback seems to be that my Blogger posts aren’t importing into WordPress. Surprise? No, just another one of the ways Google/Blogger punishes self-hosted bloggers. Ah well, I guess you can’t read into the same blog twice. We’ll just call it a period of death/rebirth and possibly recycling as I sift through the 528 old posts dating back to Jan, 2004.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

2007 won’t go down in the history books as a particularly memorable year, although with little competition from the previous 200x years, I would say 2007 wasn’t that bad.

Things Worth Raving About In 2007:

The Demonslayer’s Handbook – The story was finished in the middle of 2007.  I set it aside, and came back to it over the 2007 Christmas break, and re-re-re-read the whole thing cover to cover. It is ready for beta test-readers and feedback, and perhaps one more round of revision before I subject it to an editor.

jaggedspiral.com The website got a MAJOR overhaul, and I personally programmed every last line of HTML/CSS by hand using an esoteric combination of Notepad++ and Adobe GoLive. Thanks to James for the new, shiny band logo.

Days From Evil the debut album from Jagged Spiral, two-years in the making and finally released at the end of 2007. Each track from the album was released one at a time on the internet (FOR FREE) over the last 9 weeks of 2007. Click here and scroll down for the download links. Fans can use the “donate” buttons on the website to set any price on the album they like. Note that Radiohead took the same approach with their 2007 release, “In Rainbows”.

Nine Inch Nails marketing genius. The Alternate Reality Game / Marketing behind the Nine Inch Nails release “Year Zero” was nothing short of genius. Trent Reznor remembered that an album is more than just an album, it’s an experience. The more you can add to that experience for the fans, the better. In the case of Year Zero, the album is great on it’s own, (and if you haven’t heard “Capital G“, you’re missing out) but the experience of the online phenomenon/pseudo-conspiracy pushed this album to the top for 2007, and showed the rest of the world how it’s done.

i-[fill in the blank] In 2007, “i” became the new “e”. Pretty much anything that started with “i” in 2007 was something you shoulda bought stock in. i-Pod, i-Tunes, i-Phone…

Things Worth Ranting About In 2007:

The 35W Bridge Collapse. I was surprised at the reaction of many Americans to this disaster, specifically the reactions of those NOT involved. If there is a house fire in Minnesota, you generally don’t call everyone you know and tell them that *you* are alright simply because you live in a house in Minnesota too.  The bridge hadn’t even finished collapsing and bloggers were posting announcements that they and their families were OK, and tweeting on twitter.com to update their status as “Uninjured”. Someone should come up with a name for this strange behavior…

If you talk to anyone in Minnesota besides myself, they will tell you they JUST drove over the bridge moments before it collapsed. That’s about 4,919,478 people, which pretty much explains *why* it collapsed.

DRM = Dumb RIAA Morons.  As much as I railed against the horrific, poisonous, anti-consumeristic atrocity that is DRM, you simply can’t stop what the consumers want. It’s obvious that people want music, and they want to get it through theinternet, badly enough to put up with DRM, and are willing to let the RIAA force a square peg into a round hole.

Too bad for music fans, but it looks like DRM is here to stay. Sorry, but I did my best…

Things To Look Forward To In 2008:

More stories from yours truly. Because the Demonslayer’s Handbook is written, my inner writer gets laid off for a while and my inner editor takes over. But every now and again I have to shift between the left and right brains, so I plan on letting my inner writer out of the basement periodically to work up some short horror stories…

The End of Ze World. Well, if we assume that Nostradamus made some kind of mathematical error. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait until 21 Dec 2012 also known as Doomsday 2012.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Not that I want to get my hopes up too much, but hey, it’s too late. 22 May 2008 Baby!

Guitars, not DJs. DJs are dead. Good riddance. Long live guitars!

Jagged Spiral LIVE Look out world! Jagged Spiral is coming to a town near you! (…as long as you live near Minneapolis.) The band already held court at a private party back in October, and the first official public performance at Stasiu’s on December 11th. Look out for two upcoming shows, at Club Underground on Thursday 31 Jan 2008 , and a Battle of the Bands at the Dinkytowner on 10 Feb 2008! Check out the band blog for more details, pix, and future concert updates…

The Death of Emo

Art Is Resistance

-Zero

It’s the end of the year again, that time of year when Minnesota, The Land of 10,000 Blogs muddies the water of the internet with lists of things people thought were the “best of 2006″. Oh well, for what it’s worth, here’s my contribution.

2006 – The Good

The Demonslayer’s Handbook

I worked on The Demonslayers Handbook a lot this year. (also known as “The Book”) I’m taking a short break from that now, to focus on audio recording, and will attack the DSH again in January. It’s such a huge project I have no idea how long I’ll be hacking at this thing.

Jagged Spiral

The Jagged Spiral project “Days From Evil” creeps towards completion, and the third single, ‘Forced Entry’ has been entered into the Rift Magazine Compilation CD 2 Contest. My 6-week sore throat and chest cold, and a lovely rebound of congestion is not helping to get this project completed anytime soon. But we are proclaiming 2007 to be The Year of the Spiral.

The Jagged Spiral website progresses in short bursts of manic creativity, we will release an official announcement once we have some real content. In the meantime, you can catch some audio clips on our myspace page. www.myspace.com/jaggedspiral

Pray For Daylight (AKA: The indie Vampire movie that cost about as much as a used car.)

Although the score for Pray For Daylight (also known as ‘The Vampire Movie’) was finished in May 2006, we have yet to see a final version release. To all of you who keep asking to see it, I assure you that it will eventually see the light of day (pun intended, and I promise no more bad puns. This year, anyways.)

The end of… Superstar DJ’s?

Thankfully, City Pages reports that 2006 was the year that Superstar DJ’s died, This assumes that there actually were such things as ‘Superstar’ DJs. But if it’s true, then I guess 2006 wasn’t all bad.

I’m actually reporting that 2006 was the year that City Pages died.  The City Pages covers and cover stories are nearly offensive in their poor quality and topics. God bless them for trying to be ‘journalistic’ but it ain’t like Playboy, people read it to find out what the hell’s going on in Murderapolis. Hey CP, the ‘Reader’ is gone now, you can relax!

I find myself turning towards Vita.MN as my Minneapolis To-Do Resource. I know it’s just a repackaging of the Star Tribune’s Entertainment section, but Vita MN is focused on the local. Easy to find what you’re looking for, and their website gives citypages.com a run for its money.

Mein Kampf über alles.

In 2006 I finished German and graduated from the University of MN with a Bachelors of Philosophy Degree. It will soon be supplemented with a Computer Science second major, which should qualify me to work at a Burger King instead of just the Philosophy Major, which qualifies me to debate on the ethics of eating there.

I did not watch any television this year. None. It isn’t worth my time. And I don’t drink, smoke or weigh any more or less than I did last year.

The Words of 2006

2006 – The Bad

Emo Music

Emo music hit its Godforsaken Peak in 2006, and I hope everyone involved with this travesty of a music genre will die a slow painful death involving internal hemorrhaging. Doubly so for Metal Emo bands like Hinder.

If you are exposed to Emo music, the only cure is to listen to Tool very quitetly for 6 minutes, then listen to Jagged Spiral as loud as you can for three days straight without eating or sleeping. After the third day, have a shot of Jagermeister and repeat until you are feeling better.

DRM – Automatic for the Sheeple

DRM also hit its peak in 2006, thanks to the i-Diots who bought an i-Pod to play their i-Tunes. Did NONE of you investigate the other options? If you can’t name three other mp3 player brands, you shouldn’t be allowed to buy one. If you don’t know what DRM is, you shouldn’t be allowed to buy one. Sheep, sheep, sheep.

2007 – Die Zukunft

For myself, I’m glad 2006 is over. I will look back on 2006 as a year that was high-maintenance, low-payoff. Hopefully, 2007 will be more of a payoff for all the work I did in 2006. Don’t forget, 2007 Is The Year of the Spiral!

Hope you all have a safe, happy, and unboring New Year’s Eve!

Blog on,
-CZ

Last night I was putting together my costume for Halloween. I used up almost two full cans of flat white spray paint, in an enclosed garage, at four in the morning. (It’s beginning to scare me how little sleep I really need.) I held my breath for about half an hour, and got a headache like I haven’t had since the last time I drank shots of Jagermeister with the Jagerettes on St. Patrick’s Day… but I digress.

Anyway, I stopped in at the local fabric store in Brooklyn Park, Harris something-or-other, and my out-of-body-experience went something like this:

“Can I help you?” An older lady behind the counter asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m looking for a polyurethane-based, synthetic leather nicknamed Pleather. Have you heard of it?”

Long pause. A second woman comes over to help/eavesdrop.

“Sure.”

Another pause, and a more-than-cursory inspection, not unlike my Drill Sergeant would perform just before a formation. They probably think I’m a City Inspector or with ‘Americas Funniest Home Videos’ or something. At least, I don’t think I look like a terrorist.

“What, um, what color were you looking for?”

I now notice a third woman attempting to get as close to this conversation as possible without getting caught. She isn’t very good at it.

“White” I say, as casually as possible.

“OH!” All three ladies gasp in unison, their hands shooting to cover their mouths as thought I had suddenly contracted the Avian Flu. The third lady pretends not to be shocked (because she isn’t really listening) but she clearly catches about a quarter inch of air.

“Its over there,” the first lady says, pointing with the hand not covering her mouth.

Weird. The rest of the clientele were buying floral-print fabrics which would make the cover of Country Home Magazine puke, and they’re looking at me like I just asked to purchase several yards of Human Flesh.

Oh well, I’ll post some pix when my costume is finished…

Blog on,
-Z

I was recently approached by a fledgling non-profit organization who wanted me to set up audio and video for their inaugural launch meeting: five microphones through a mixing board to a house PA system, and live video pushed to monitors in another section of the facility.

Why is this funny? The group is Minnesota Women in Film and Television:

…a fledgling non-profit organization set up by 40 women taking a pro-active approach to helping women seek success in the male-dominated film and television industry.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for groups wanting to help others “seek success.” And I’ll even overlook the fact that they are combating sexism by being sexist in the opposite direction. I would gladly help them if I could, but I will be out of town during their event.

But 40 women who want to seek success in the film and TV industry and none of them can work a mixing board or a video D/A? So they hire a mook to do it? Why is that funny?

Blog on,
-CZ

There are two kinds of Rules which Society makes up for themselves to follow. Some call them Agreements, others call them Paradigms, I call them Rules, and there are two kinds: Fake Rules (Opinions, or Rules of Normalcy) and Real Rules (Laws, or Rules of Peace).

The Fake Rules are opinions, and generally have to do with what is ‘appropriate’ or ‘normal’:

• Don’t wear white after Labor Day.
• Blue is for boys and pink is for girls.
• K-Swiss is cool, Levi’s are not.
• Bumper stickers promote change.
• One religion is right and others are not.
• Any stereotype you can think of.

It’s my philosophy for a good life to prove the Fake Rules wrong by breaking as many of them as you can, as often as possible. I make fun of them, and the people who blindly belive in them. Why? Because it drives a wedge between the Fake Rules and the Real ones, and forces people to see the difference. The disapproving looks and comments I get about my appearance and actions are feedback that tell me that I do a pretty good job at it.

It goes without saying that sometimes Society has it’s collective head clearly, squarely up it’s collective ass, but not all of Society’s Rules are bad ones. There are certain Rules we have to agree upon to live together on this planet in Peace. These are the Real Rules; more easily identified when passed into Laws. These are the rules which allow us to live in cities without walls and moats around them. I’m pretty sure one of those rules is to Not Rob Families’ Homes At Gunpoint.

However, on the night of Tuesday, October 11th, sometime around midnight while I was writing up my blog post for the Nine Inch Nails show, three masked men decided to break the rules, and robbed my next-door neighbor’s home at gunpoint.  If I didn’t have the fan on in this very room at that very time, I probably would have heard them kick down the door.

I’m sure those three criminals live by a different set of rules – rules in which Peace is not the overreaching goal. One of those rules is probably “Might Makes Right”. A rule in which tying up a ten-year-old daughter, and kicking her father in the head repeatedly until he was bleeding and unconsious is OK. Then, forcing her mother to show them where all the valuables in the house are, loading up their car, and stealing that as well? That’s OK too. Why? Because they had the guns, That’s why. Because Might Makes Right.

In some seven minute period of Tuesday night, while I sat reflecting and blissfully blogging my experiences at the Nine Inch Nails concert, my neighbors went through a hell I cannot imagine, less than fifty feet away. Three people who broke the Real Rules have deeply changed not only the lives of that family, but everyone on this block. Everyone is re-evaluating their home security, inventory, insurance, and most likely, their Last Will and Testament. Everyone is contemplating what they might do in that situation, and none of us knows the answer unless it actually happens.

To those three criminals who choose to break the Rules of Peace: be warned. The Agreement works both ways, and now Society is no longer bound by those Rules when dealing with you. Society is now free to step down to your level. As a matter of fact, at this very moment, Society is gathering money and pooling it into an organization specifically designed to hunt you down and punish you. And they are good at it, they do it for a living.

Just remember, we gave you the chance to live in Peace, and you chose “Might Makes Right”. But you forgot; we are bigger than you, and we have more guns. We have professionals working round the clock to find you, prowling the streets in cars with the word ‘Police’ on the side. Might Makes Right. Are you scared? You should be.

Rule on,
-Z

I made up a new word today:

Presactly

A hybrid of ‘Precisely’ and ‘Exactly’. You heard it here first.

And now, on to making up swear words. I suspect I will need some tonight on the main floor of Xcel Energy Center whilst watching NIN…

Blog on,

-Z

This was a surprise to me. I took the test twice to make sure…
-C

You scored as River Tam. The Fugitive. You are clever and dangerous, which is a nasty combination. The fact you are crazy too just adds to your charm. They did bad things to you, but you know their secrets. They will regret how they made you. Capt. Mal Reynolds 88% River Tam 88% The Operative 75% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 75% Inara Serra 75% Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne 75% Kaylee Frye 69% Simon Tam 56% Shepherd Derrial Book 44% Jayne Cobb 44% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Sometimes I feel like psychic people are stalking me and they hang out where I am going to be before I get there. And it’s not really fair, because I rarely know where the hell I’m going.

Similarly, I feel as though sometimes people have access to my ideas before I do. For instance, I really wanted to write an article on how I don’t understand the MN State Fair, but I seem to go every year. Every year it’s the same; like a high school reunion that you only go to so you feel better about your own life.

But local hot-n-snarky blogstress Diablo Cody already wrote my thoughts, so I’ll just link to her post.

Blog on,
-CZ

A quick audio snapshot of my mind and the things that sometimes spill out of it…

wisdom1

Enjoy,
-Z