Mabel's VeganEats

I decided it was time to upgrade my decor. Fernando started me off with the cheap decor, cause he had to, but now there was enough money for a little pizzaz. You can see the old paint and flooring still in the kitchen. It was too expensive to change all the tables and chairs, so I picked wall colours and flooring to match the tables. And then I created a VIP lounge where I put some more expensive furniture. Maybe eventually I put a different style in each section of the cafe.

There's a lot of weird lookin' people eating at my cafe, but it's vegan food so I guess that's to be expected.

Musical singlehood

[For a nice musical accompaniment, play one of the Basia Bulat songs at the bottom of the entry!]

One possible contribution to the decline of music industry revenue is that with iTunes type stores you can download singles instead of albums. Several people blame the music companies themselves, because with CDs they basically got rid of the single, which was the younger person's gateway into buying music.

I didn't buy a lot of EPs--preferring instead to buy cheap LPs of less popular music, like old Pointer Sisters or Yvonne Fair--but I remember clearly the ones I bought. And the rest we taped off the radio! Remember those days? Old school! I always had a blank tape handy in case I needed to throw it in the stereo and tape a song off the radio.

Anyway, we all know there is plenty of music in this world that only deserves single-hood, so I agree with those who think the shallow-pop artists were the ones who benefited most from this period of single-less record stores, and who are possibly losing the most now.

I consciously try to buy albums sometimes, because I know that some of my favourites were albums I didn't love when I first bought them, but that grew on me. But we're talking about artists like Prince and Kate Bush. There are other albums I never bothered to re-buy on CD, because the tapes didn't stand the test of time.

I still get occasionally burned by buyer's regret. So I have a new system--I buy one or two singles that catch my attention. If they stick with me for awhile, and I yearn for more like them, then I buy another song or two from the album. And if I love those too, then I eventually commit to the "complete my album" option (as I just did with the artist below.)

But I do have to wonder how much free downloading and single-purchasing can actually explain the loss of sales in the music ind.

* Study: Piracy Does Not Deter the Production of Music, Films, Books
* Harvard Paper on P2P Flawed But Worth Reading

And for myself, I spend waaaaaay more money on music than I used to. I remember the days when a spending spree at HMV meant 3-4 albums, $100. I felt guilty and it kept my going for months, maybe even the year (depending on my income.)

But the instant gratification of immediate purchase has made me spend more and more money over the years, until I've settled into my current pace. I rip some library albums (time honoured tradition), and I free-download some pop singles (the ones I worry I won't like for longer than 6 months), but I only have a couple album-freebies in my collection. I can't download an artist's entire catalog for free, I get way too much guilt from that. Maybe one day when I'm strapped for cash.

So the question is, how many people are like me? How many people spend more money on music because of stores like iTunes? Je ne sais pas.

My café

My husband's new addiction is a facebook game called Café World, where you collect ingredients, and set things to cook, and then have to serve them before they go bad. He started using the game with my login (on my computer) so that he could *use me* as his neighbour, to collect more things for his café.

This results in a whole bunch of game icons cluttering up my facebook profile. At first I just tried to stay on top of deleting them all (doesn't take long.) But then I found out that the only way to share them with friends who play the game is to leave them on your profile a bit, for others to take. So now I don't even delete them so he, or one of our friends who plays, can have them.

And I find myself leaving one tab open with his game on so he can collect points, and I check in to see if any meals need serving so they won't spoil. (The eggs benedict were not a pretty sight.)

I finally just had to embrace it this weekend and make my avatar look better.


The funny thing is that Our Friend uses her mother's facebook login to do the same thing. "So if one day your mother is trying to friend me on facebook, it's really you friending Fernando?" Yes.

As Scrooge would say, I'll retire to Bedlam.

Scenes from a marriage - Sunglasses

Scene: On a bus, Fernando is wearing Mabel's oversized rhinestone studded sunglasses.


Fernando - I'm glad you can handle my flashiness. Not all wives could handle this level of flash.

Mabel - But you're always upstaging me in front of my friends.

Fernando - It is what it is, my love.

Ramblings of an entourage girl

So as you know, I'm a big fan of the show entourage. I wouldn't objectively claim that it's The Best Show on TV! but it is for me. The basic premise is a guy from Queens, New York who's in Hollywood, trying to make it as an A-list star. He lives or hangs out with his three best friends:

1. his half-brother Johnny "Drama", who's a C-list star desperately trying to get work; when not working he acts as his brother's cook and trainer;
2. Turtle, who drives Vince around (Vince doesn't have a license) and takes care of the house;
and 3. "E" who acts as his manager.

The other main character is Vince's agent, Ari, who's hilariously assholic, but powerful; and the show wouldn't be the same without Ari's gay assistant Lloyd, who he endlessly abuses, but who sometimes brings out (or sees) Ari's human side.

[Drama, Turtle, Vince, E, Ari]

We follow the ups and downs of life in the industry, and it's based on a lot of real people, and they always try to shoot in actual locations, like being at Sundance, or at a U2 concert. So part of the enjoyment is this behind the scenes look.

But the real enjoyment comes from the loyalty and friendships, either between the boys who grew up together, or occasionally between the boys and Ari, and between Ari and Lloyd.

Drama is my favourite character--an insecure narcissist, who's always spouting theories on relationships, or the business, and is usually (oddly) right. Because the boys are from Queens, they always retain this core of "street" which is great fun when it comes out, such as during a bar brawl with Seth Green and his boys, or when Drama gets road rage and smashes up a Malibu townie's car with a 9 iron.



I just rewatched the first episode of season 5 and it's a great picture of the friendship aspect of the show that really drives it. Drama is on the set of his series, having poster photos taken, and he refuses to let them take pictures of the right side of his face. He thinks the weirdness of his right side is why he was rated by teen girls as creepy.

The camera flashes between 5 tough looking executives coming down to the set to talk to him, and Drama on the phone with E who's trying to find out where in Mexico Vince is:

D - E, I can't talk right now.
E - Drama it's an emergency!
D - [pauses] An emergency? Is baby bro in trouble?
E - Ya kind of.
D - [steely determination] I'm on my way.
[He leaps out of the trailer as the execs walk up.]
Main Exec - Johnny Chase.
D [extends his hand] - Mr. Chairman. Shoot me any way you want. I got to get to Mexico. [runs back to the photoshoot]

Ahhh now that's brotherly love. It's one of the most foulmouthed shows on TV, and the guys are constantly insulting each other (as boys are wont to do), and yet... heartwarming. I've watched all of Sex and the City, and I enjoyed it, but for some reason I get more enjoyment out of a bunch of boys running around Hollywood trying to get laid, than I a bunch of women running around New York trying to fall in love/get laid. Maybe it's just cause the one liners are better.

[Drama doing the macarena with the girls in France, where his old show Viking Quest has always been a huge hit.]

invest in evil

It really is too soon for BP jokes; but once you get past the BP-cringing part, this Scott Adams article--arguing that the only wise investment strategy is to invest in companies you think are evil--is pretty funny.

Here's how he describes the alternative:

Invest in Companies You Love

Instead of investing in companies you hate, as I have suggested, perhaps you could invest in companies you love. I once hired professional money managers at Wells Fargo to do essentially that for me. As part of their service they promised to listen to the dopey-happy hallucinations of professional liars (CEOs) and be gullible on my behalf. The pros at Wells Fargo bought for my portfolio Enron, WorldCom, and a number of other much-loved companies that soon went out of business. For that, I hate Wells Fargo. But I sure wish I had bought stock in Wells Fargo at the time I hated them the most, because Wells Fargo itself performed great. See how this works?

Those crazies in the musiz biz. Crazy!!

In the article about Rick Rubin (who's a very pro-artist producer, now employed to help Columbia get on its feet) and apparently he and a lot of other music-ee guys (Jimmy Iovine, David Geffen) think a subscription system is the ONLY way to go. And if the music companies don't do it, then Microsoft will wait until the record companies are crashing and cheap, buy em up, and do it themselves.

Meanwhile Rubin's partner--the more businessee guy--is worried about all the problems with the subscription system (with reason). But his solution is... take a cut from the artists' touring and merchandise sales! What the--!!! So the record industry, who have been fucking over artists for decades, who survived for a decade by riding the CD wave (people buying albums they've bought before, and charging $22 per album when it cost pennies to make), now want to save their asses by taking a cut from the one area where artists make their living?? Oh come ON. Eeeeaaaaaase!

It doesn't even fix the problem, which is -- how can artists afford to record albums if their music is mostly downloaded? You have to fix the problem of how to pay for content creation. Not find a new way to bilk the content creators. Jeeze Louize!

One opinion I'm coming across with increasing frequency is the that digi-downloads is only ONE reason why the music industry has been losing money this past decade, and it's just masking a whole bunch of other reasons that the companies are themselves to blame for. Such as not concentrating enough on finding good content. The companies were the gatekeepers to the few avenues where people discovered new music, so if they had someone mediocre or shitty to sell, they could still sell them--get their videos out, get them airplay, etc. And it was (in part) because kids were looking for actual music they LIKED that the online avenue took off the way it did.

And I read of another set of authors who argue that all the media conglomerating that's been going on hasn't been good for the companies in question: "the authors point out the difference between judging a company by how many times it's CEO is seen in Sun Valley and by whether it generates consistently superior profitability." Sounds a bit like Icahn's comments.