Articles by Michael Anderson

Marco Machera Serves up a Stunning Debut Album with ‘One Time, Somewhere’

Marco Machera – ‘One Time, Somewhere’ I had intended to include this as a feature selection in a round-up of new releases, but then something happened – that turned into a set of ‘semi-quavers’ set apart by a full review on this album. It simply earned and deserved the attention – so here it is! Summary: Since my family has such diverse set of musical tastes – one son is huge into techno while the other favors mostly rap and some ‘screamo’, my wife loves pop and alt-rock from throughout the decades, and I listen to … however you want…

eBooks, News & Features

Ellen Reads from ’50 Shades of Grey’

If you follow pop culture and popular books at all, you have heard something about the novel 50 Shades of Grey. If not, I’ll catch you up quickly: it was a Twilight fan-fiction which gained interest from publishers but needed a change of characters, which basically puts a young college student and a rich older man together … but rather than vampires and werewolves we have whips and chains. In fact, Christian Grey makes young Anastasia Steele sign a contract allowing him to subject her to his every BDSM whim. And if you don’t know what BDSM is … chances…

Editorials, News & Features

Monsanto, Already ‘Most Evil Company of 2011’, Buys Bee Research Company to Hide Ills

There are few insects as critical to just about every part of the ecological cycle as the bee. Some estimates say that one-third of naturally grown food requires pollination by bees, including most fruits, vegetables and nuts. Coffee, soy beans and cotton are all dependent on pollination by bees to increase yields. It is the start of a food chain that also sustains wild birds and animals. And yet in recent years the bee population has been in freefall, with reports stating that a decline of 90% or more has occurred over the last few decades. The reports are not…

Music Diary, Reviews

Gary Husband Delivers State of the Art Fusion on ‘Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2’

Gary Husband – ‘Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2’ I reviewed Dirty & Beautiful Volume 1 early last year, concluding : There is no fluff here – perhaps that is why this is ‘volume 1?, as the next volume is due in 2011 sometime. And while I might have appreciated getting more time to get to know each grouping on the record, this is Husband’s project, and if the goal was to show how vital and vibrant and versatile fusion can be in 2010 … and if that wasn’t the goal he should review the original goal! Because this record takes…

News & Features

Boston’s Fenway Park Celebrates 100 Years of Baseball Traditions

Even as the world was still reeling from the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, a new era dawned in Boston, and in sports history. On April 20, 1912 Fenway Park opened to the public with a capacity of 35,000 seats … and the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Highlanders in an extra-innings thriller to launch the storied baseball stadium. At this point, Fenway Park is the oldest professional baseball stadium. Chicago’s Wrigley Field is the only other ‘classic’ park remaining. It is also one of the most famous venues in all of sports, with many legendary moments transpiring…

Music Diary, News & Features

Rush Streams New Song in Advance of New Album Release!

Rush is no stranger to … well, just about anything at this point. Releasing their first album nearly 40 years ago, they have spent the decades remaining faithful to fans, providing some of the best prog-rock accompanied by impressive musicianship that complements without overtaking the songs. Now they are preparing a new album, ‘Clockwork Angels’ due out on June 12th. To build anticipation, they are streaming “Headlong Flight” for free in a variety of places, including an official version with lyrics streaming on YouTube. The song will be instantly recognizable to anyone with even passing familiarity with the band: Geddy Lee…

News & Features

Alienware Discontinues the m11x ‘Gaming Netbook’

Just over two years ago, I wrote my first impressions of the initial Alienware m11x ‘gaming netbook’. I found the build quality and processor a bit lacking but the design and graphics performance were excellent. About six months later, Dell released the R2 version, this time with a low-power Core i7 processor, and I absolutely adored the updated laptop. Well, except that the Optimus graphics switching system was nearly useless at launch and took some time to get correct. I always preferred the manual switching of the original system (and the Sony Vaio S-series) as it gave better battery life and…

Music Diary, News & Features

Music as Art … Sheet Music Art, That Is!

An artistic duo called ‘People Too’ from Novabrinsk in Russia are known for their amazing papercraft that seeks to bring small scenes to life, but apparently they can also bring sheet music to life as well! We all know that music is art, and therefore sheet music contains art … but it is amazing when the sheet music ITSELF becomes art! The site linked below has more than a dozen examples of great art done in between the stanzas – definitely check it out. Take a look at this one! Head to the site and check out all of them!…

Music Diary

RIP Dick Clark, Timeless Host and Breaker of Boundaries

Although my kids will sadly remember Dick Clark from his post-stroke days, struggling for coherence alongside Ryan Seacrest, he was much more than that in a career that cut across 8 decades. The Dick Clark I grew up with was a force of nature – he started well before my time as the man who brought rock’n’roll to the mainstream, spent 31 years as the host of the amazing American Bandstand, started an empire including American Music Awards, the Pyramid game shows, Bloopers, and so on. And of course he made New Year’s Eve a television event with Dick Clark’s…

Editorials, News & Features

What to Do When You Lose 800k Customers? Change Your Spokesmodel’s Wardrobe!

Or at least that seems to be the approach T-Mobile is taking! After reporting that they managed to bleed more than 800,000 customers in the US alone during the fourth quarter of last year, T-Mobile is calling 2012 a ‘building year’, meaning they will continue to lose money and bleed customers, and that hopefully someone will care when they get a REAL LTE network in 2013. And apparently part of the building strategy is playing ‘dress up’ with spokesmodel Carly Foulkes. Check out the new commercial from T-Mobile: Here is the text: Time To Set The Record Straight. What do you…

Editorials

Study Correlates Walmart Presence to Rise in Hate Groups

Whenever I see a study that talks about ‘correlation’ being bandied about in the press as ‘showing linkage’, I immediately don my ‘correlation does NOT mean causation’ hat! And in a new study noted at LiveScience, that is at least as true as usual. The study shows there is a significant correlation between number of Wal-Mart stores in a county and the number of hate groups. And as the number of stores have grown, so have the number of hate groups. Before I chime in, here is a bit of context about how things were done: The researchers used data…

Music Diary

Sex Pistols 35th Anniversary ‘God Save the Queen’ Lands on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee!

Back in 1977 the Sex Pistols stirred up considerable controversy … well, pretty much all the time! But their confrontational punk anthem ‘God Save the Queen’ from their ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ LP is perhaps the grandest singular statement in punk music. And perhaps not coincidentally it landed with a bang just as the Queen was celebrating her 25th anniversary. Now in 2012 all of England is gearing up for the Queen’s diamond (60th) jubilee celebration. So naturally the Sex Pistols publishers are re-releasing the classic single to coincide with the event! Back in 1977 the song simultaneously captivated and…

Gear Bits

The Amazing Story of the First Woman to Officially Run the Boston Marathon

It is hard to think that within my life there was a time when women were essentially forbidden to run a marathon – yet the image above is one of those magical moments caught on film. It shows 20-year old Kathrine Switzer as the first officially entered woman in the Boston Marathon (Roberta Gibb ran as a renegade the year before). And the image shows marathon organizer Jock Semple chasing Switzer and attacking her, reportedly shouting “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” The image also shows a number of men helping Switzer hold off…

Editorials, Music Diary, News & Features

Musical Necrophilia Hits the Rap Era

It was only a matter of time before rap music started resorting to ‘Natalie Cole Syndrome’. Older performers such as the caricature ‘Snoop Doggy Dog’, the has-been Dr. Dre, and the self-parody Eminem who are seeking to show that they are hip and relevant — rather than out of touch middle-aged millionaires without a clue — have taken the EXACT SAME tactics as Cole when she sang ‘Unforgettable’ with her (late) father. I’m sure rap fans will deny it … but that is all just posturing. Sure, in typical rap fashion they inject language that shows their limited intellect and…

Editorials, News & Features

New iPad Giving You ‘Could Not Activate Cellular Network’ Error? You’re Not Alone!

I’ve had the new iPad since launch day, and until last Monday it was the poster child for perfection – no cosmetic defects, no performance issues or problems with setup or flaky behavior. Just a great screen, excellent battery life, tremendous performance, and solid 3G connectivity (most of my home and work life puts me outside of 4G/LTE connectivity). Well … until yesterday. Since I use WiFi at home I never end up using cellular data at home unless I am out and about shuffling the kids from activity to activity. But I only use the cellular network at work,…

Editorials, News & Features

Komen Races Feeling Consequences of Planned Parenthood Gaffe

This weekend I signed my family up for the local ‘Race for the Cure’, I’ll be running the 5k and my wife and boys will be walking it. I covered the firestorm related to the Komen Foundation suddenly pulling funding for Planned Parenthood efforts in Cancer screening and health care for needy women a few months ago, so I was obviously aware of THAT dimension … but we decided to participate despite of the political mischief of the Komen leadership. Nevertheless, it definitely played into our willingness to fund-raise for the event (and my reluctance to spread links for the…

Gear Bits, Music Diary, News & Features

Journey Sing-Along Created in Movie Clips

Take a classic song from more than 30 years ago that gets more airplay today than most pop music, and mix it up with snips from decades of classic movies, and what do you get? Something absolutely brilliant! Check it out! Source: Buzzfeed

News & Features

Hilariously Effective Nike ‘I Would Run to You’ Commercial

How often do you see a full 2.5-minute commercial that even as it is obviously selling a brand, makes you stop and fully engage in the story? Well, this new commercial for Nike featuring two lovers who find themselves across the country and missing one another is cute, endearing, and hilarious. It is a great story … and well worth watching and sharing! Here is the description: Nike and W+K Portland put a romantic twist on running, with this 2:30 video about two lovers running across to country to see each other, directed by Rattling Stick’s Ringan Ledwidge. Promoting the…

Editorials, News & Features

Nokia Lumia 900 Has Botched Retail Launch, Yet Still Hits #1 on Amazon!

This past Sunday, my brother was visiting; he and my wife and I went for a long bike ride, taking a path around the local mall along the way … and noting that everything was closed. Because it was Easter. It just also happened to be the launch day of the Nokia Lumia 900, the de facto flagship phone of the entire Windows Phone line-up. There have been articles questioning the wisdom of an Easter launch, but none more pointed than the one from the New York Times: AT&T said last month that when Nokia’s new Lumia 900 phone went…

Music Diary, News & Features

Madonna Finds an (Unfortunate) Way To Prove She is Better than Gaga in All Ways!

Lady Gaga has made quite a career as a Madonna clone, something that the Queen of Pop was fine to tolerate until she decided it was time to kick-start her music career again this year. At that point, emboldened by a general opinion that Gaga was a similar but lesser product than her, Madonna earlier this year referred to Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ as ‘reductive’ – an accurate but nonetheless scathing term … especially in an age where computers with sophisticated software can dissect songs so easily to show their origins and similarities. Now, just one week after claiming the…

Gear Bits, News & Features

Final Reminder to Support Dan on Zinio and Help Foundation Beyond Belief Charity!

As you might have read here, Dan is entered into the ‘Biggest Influencer’ contest at Zinio. Each day (well, 24 hour period) you can enter a new vote at Zinio and help him win the vote and by doing so gain a $2500 donation to the Foundation Beyond Belief Charity! Great cause, great way to help out – and all you need to do is click a link! And now we are into the final week – so this is a reminder to hop on to Zinio every day this week and support Dan! Here are his details: Here Is…

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