Imagine, if you will a rock band.

A rock band who’s existence could be measured in months.

A rock band that’s whole repertoire can be counted on one hand, and existed entirely of covers.

A rock band that publically performed only once, but who’s single appearance continues to reverberate in the bowels of the internet, and consequently has become legendary.

You’ve just imagined It Ain’t My Baby.

I played with this strange band.  Of course, I can only play the computer, so I was charged with playing synthesized rhythm guitar (and the occasional special effects).

John Prinzo, the drummer of the band, has dug up the ol’ YouTube evidence on his excellent Kisses and Noise blog:

“There are times when music can change your life, change the world even. The Beatles played the rooftop of the Apple Building, then there was Woodstock, and for a while … nothing. Then, on December 19th 2007, the world gaped in amazement as the last walls between the past and the future, between enslavement and liberty, between dogs and cats, between what people considered music before and what was defined that evening were obliterated – forever – by 5 people (rock gods) with a vision…”

Hahaha. Check out his blog for every song we ever played, if you think you can stand it.  For now, I’m just going to link to our version of Add It Up by the Violent Femmes:

So it’s now been a couple of days since I’ve started promoting The _____ of _____ by Means of Natural _____, and so far the response and feedback has been great!

• R.U. Sirius mentioned it on the h+ website, which is AWESOME!
• Scienceandreligiontoday.com posted about it.
• And Humantrip.net republished the press release verbatim.  :)

But it’s not just secularists that are curious.  Christians like it too!

• The I Think I Believe blog thought it was “genius”!
• Dr. James McGrath, an associate professor of religion at Butler University mentioned it on his blog.
• There’s a thread on the OnlineBaptist.com message boards about it.
• Orthodoxchristianity.net posters found it amusing in this thread.
• The Talk.Origins usenet group discovered it as well.

Wow.  I love it!

UPDATE (3/13):  My sincere apologies to Arni Zachariassen, author of the I Think I Believe blog for the implication that he was a secularist.  I’ve moved him to the list of Christians.  :)  He’s posted an excellent analysis of the book here.

Audiobook version coming soon.

I’m happy to announce today that I’ve released my first book. It’s called The _____ of _____ By Means of Natural _____ or the _____ of Favoured _____ In the Struggle For Life: King James Version.

I also set up a separate page for it on this site, so that I’d have a nice little landing page for it.

Basically, I wrote a PHP script that took Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and I had the script redact every word from Darwin which does not appear in the King James bible.

The resulting work is an amusing objet ‘d art. I think it says something about fundamentalism and language.  I also hope it says something about the absurdity of creationism, and the importance of science in how we understand the world.

It’s available now as a 204-page, perfect bound trade paperback.  A bargain, at a mere $13.25.

After the jump, the text of the press release I’ve been spreading around.

Read more »

Found today on the awesome Streetanatomy.com blog.

Animation by Evelyn Lee. Excellent work.

KANIZSA HILL from evelyn lee on Vimeo.

This comes via boingboing.net today.

After J-school, I’m more convinced than ever that newspapers (ink on dead tree) are pretty much doomed, with the exception of some niches — free papers, alternative papers, hyperlocal neighborhood papers.

Even among my journalist friends, I can’t think of anyone that has an actual subscription to a dead-tree daily newspaper.

Anyway, enjoy the video.

My hand needs a tripod.

Another diabolical invention.

Here in the midwest, there’s a local custom of playing a beanbag-tossing game known as “Cornhole”.  If you ever find yourself in a tailgating situation around here, you’ll see lots of people playing it.  In fact, it’s so popular, there’s even a group called the American Cornhole Association that’ll tell you the official rules, and hosts tournaments.  They even have a website at playcornhole.org.

So I thought of a game that could be played as a supplement to cornhole.  I’m calling it “Kick My Balls”.

The principle is pretty simple:

You use a standard basketball and basketball hoop attached to a plywood backboard.  The net is tied at the bottom to hold the ball.  The ball starts out cradled in the net.  The player kicks the ball through the bottom of the net, and tries to get it to land back in the net.  If the player is successful, they are assigned points based on the height the ball reached.  If the ball lands outside the net, no points are awarded, and the player has to run after and retrieve the ball.

The diagram is self-explanatory. I suggest painting the background with caricatures of unpopular political figures

P.S., since this is the second invention I’ve posted, I’m going to make a new category for them.

So the Medill project came to a successful conclusion.

I’m now a Master of Science in Journalism.

I’m still looking for some full time work, but I’ve managed to get a couple of freelance projects that will keep me fed and housed for a couple of months.  I’ll post more about them as they get closer to completion.

So, additional freelance projects seem like a good idea at this point.  It seems wise to split my job-search time between full time positions and additional freelance gigs, at least for the time being.

And it’s almost X-mas.  Hope you’re having a good one!

As many of you are probably aware, I’ve spent the last couple of months working on the Interactive Innovation Project for Fall 2009.  This is the capstone project of my year at Medill.

The project has been about obituaries in print and online, and about how obituaries drive readership to local media outlets.

One of the two major pieces of the project was to produce a report on the state of obituaries in America these days.  I had a pretty large hand in this aspect of the project, as I was one of the primary authors of the report.  I’m happy to say that today, that report has been released.

From the obitresearch.com blog about the project:

“To better understand the nature of our project and the role of Legacy.com in today’s obituary publishing industry, the Fall 2009 Interactive Innovation Project team at the Medill School of Journalism has been diligently researching the history and trends of American obituary writing. We have summarized our findings in a report that we have released this morning. In this report, we examine the nature of the contemporary American obituary, a phenomenon that constitutes an important content category for modern newspapers – and, increasingly, for publishers in other media.”

Read the full post here.

Download the report (PDF).

UPDATE: Oh, hey, look at this — we got a mention on the Washington Post Post Mortem blog!

UPDATE 2: Another mention, from an Editor & Publisher blog!

UPDATE 3: An article about the report appeared in the Vancouver Sun.

UPDATE 4 (12/8/2009): A story about the report appeared on the Northwestern University website.  We also got a link from Romenesko on Poynter.org

UPDATE 5 (12/11/2009): The AP wrote a story about the report, mentioning me by name.  That AP story has gotten republished all over, and even ended up on NPR’s Morning Edition.  Today, Michael S. Malone did an opinion piece for ABC News, which also mentions our report prominently.  Another article on Canada.com.  Oh, hey, look at this!  My buddy Jeff Billman wrote it up for a blog on the Philadelphia City Paper.  Here’s another article on Examiner.com.