I honestly can't believe it was that easy to make a podcast! Not that I couldn't have (ahem) done it myself using Ruby on Rails...(To get to it, click the 'Get Podcast' button in the widget directly below the song module on the main page)

I fricken' love storymaker. How much does it cost? Would a regular shmoe like me be able to afford his own account (and not have to use the demo account that Brightcove gave me since I work there)? Even if I have no way of monetizing my content but just want to share with friends and family?

Looking at the storymaker website, my instinctive answer to my questions is no (since you have to talk to customer engagement to get a free trial, that screams $$$$ to me). I spend ~100 dollars a year on my shared hosting, so I would only be willing to pay maybe another 25-50/year for the mp3 player project in storymaker. But don't quote me on that.

Speaking of my costs to run this website, I might be adding AdWords soon...not because I need the money (or even expect them to make money) but more to get a feel for how the integration works.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I work for Brightcove, who bought Storymaker (which up until then was its own company) maybe a year and a half ago

I'm in this week's Weekly Dig, a local free magazine. If I were to quote the article, it would look something like this:

Thompson, Barry. "exit polls". Weekly Dig. p50.

    Volume 9, Issue 30; July 25-August 1 2007.

It's interesting, because Barry didn't tell me that he was a reporter for the dig. He just said "Can I interview you and take your picture".

Same in the end
Same in the end
If you're told different
It's a liar...
...or a friend

Harry Potter. My blog is a spoiler free zone. By even SAYING that, I'm afraid that someone will post something in the comments. I actually left a showing of The Princess Bride at the Somerville Theatre (during ArtBeast 2007, an arts festival in Davis Square) because I was worried about spoilers.

So I spoiled it for myself. It was the only true way to take power away from those who would spoil it for me

That's right, I read the end of the book. The last chapter. Well, I more skimmed it than anything, so I'll still reserve the pleasure of reading it at a later date.

But honestly, I'm not going to let something as trivial as Harry Potter control my life, even a small portion of it.

Life or Death: Same in the end!

I have my secret thing with the secret company tomorrow. It's barely a secret, actually, since my boss already knows. I'm pretty nervous, but I definitely intend to post a full review here afterwards, if only because I know it will increase my page views.... :)

In other news, only about a half dozen people have downloaded my songs off of here. This is unsurprising, but still a bit disappointing. The original point of putting them up here was so that I would be inspired to compose/record more, because I would have an outlet for my creative output. Well for the first couple weeks that I had the songs up, that was definitely true. But nowadays, I've seemed to have a built-in creative drive, where I'm composing and recording almost every day with no thought to posting any of it. And that's a fantastic feeling!

I've always considered myself 'Liberal' in political views.

However, I just read the following footnote on page 18 of The Monk and the Philosopher (which is a very interesting book and deserves its own post):

'Liberalism' means in Europe almost the opposite of what it means in America. Thinkers considered liberal in Europe are John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Stuart Mill.

Damn! That's always what I've thought I meant when I've said I'm liberal. That I believe in, you know, Liberty. Freedom. That we have free will. That our government has been established to protect our Freedom and never to take it away.

But I guess that means I can't be 'socially' liberal at the same time? Because that would entail big government and lots of social programs, which would be against the ideals of Smith and Locke?

ARGGH, I wish I had taken a BASIC polisci course in college. It's times like these when I feel just woefully undereducated.