Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Okay. So I post these every week and usually wind up with only one line guessed.

This time I’ve decided to hit a special edition of the 10 lines. Welcome to “It’s the 80’s!” Prepare the synth and the “clap” sound effect, ‘cause we’re off!

1. Huey Lewis and the News, “It’s Hip to Be Square” – “I like my bands in business suits, I watch them on TV.”
2. New Kids on the Block, “Hangin’ Tough” – “Don’t worry ‘bout nothing ‘cause it won’t take long, we’re gonna put you in a trance with a funky song.”
3. Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again” [Fred] – “I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.”
4. Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer” [Fred] – “Open up your fruitcage where the fruit is as sweet as can be.”
5. Ultravox, “Dancing With Tears in my Eyes” – “The man on the wireless cries again, it’s over, it’s over.”
6. Cameo, “Word Up” [Thud] – “We don’t have that time for psychological romance.”
7. Rick Springfield, “Jesse’s Girl” [Fred] – “You know I feel so dirty when they start talkin’ cute.”
8. Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon” [Fred] – “I’m a man who doesn’t know how to sell a contradiction.”
9. Poison, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” [Thud and Fred] – “Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song.”
10. Soft Cell, “Tainted Love” [Fred] – “I’m sorry, I don’t pray that way.”
11. Bonus points to Thud for recognizing the title of the entry as a reference to The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

If you know the song and artist, drop it into the comments. Once you’ve guessed these, you can go and guess the nine lyrics left over from last week’s set. As for the week before, answers are now posted. I’m sorry, but two weeks really is the limit.

Meanwhile, because sanity is a precious commodity, I have decided today to participate in the “24 Hour RPG” project by trying to create my own RPG in 24 hours. So why am I taking the time to post these lines? Geez, man. Procrastination’s a pain.

The RIAA is n outstanding example of what can happen when the love of money far outstrips good faith, goodwill, good business, and just good common sense. How else can one explain the track record of greed and moneygrubbing that has led the RIAA in nightmare after public relations nightmare, led them to bite hands attempting to feed them, and generally lowered the consumer’s opinion of the recording industry nationwide?

If you need a good refresher as to how bad the RIAA has been for the recording industry, you might want to check out this compilation of their greatest hits provided by Dark Lanternist.

Among some of the hits,

The recording companies have been putting serious pressure on Apple’s iTunes to change its pricing to a variable structure. They believe that the more popular content should cost more, and want Steve-o to break the $0.99/song fixed cost. After Mr. Jobs called the industry’s leaders ‘greedy’, the gloves came off and real threats started to be issued.

And this classic track:

At about 1:30 p.m. on June 8, a squad of NYPD officials, private investigators and attorneys busted into Kim’s Video and Music, located on St. Marks Place in the East Village—intent on locking up employees whom they believed were selling and manufacturing pirated CDs. Officers sporting bulletproof vests immediately began ushering startled customers out of the store. The remaining officials got down to the business of drilling the store employees. They lined them up and ordered them to identify the store’s managers on duty that day. The cops wanted the managers in handcuffs.

Where were you the first time you heard this touching tune?

The legal threats by Warner against Ritter are part of a larger campaign by the company to rid the Internet of lyrics websites. “What disconcerts/disappoints me most is that now, after fighting against illegal filesharing (something I can fully understand) and trying to shut down lyrics sites, Warner/Chappell seems to want to dictate Internet users what applications they are allowed to use for searching and browsing content on publicly available websites,” Ritter said.

And who could forget this solid gold hit?

In an address to American students Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, has praised Sony BMG for its decision to install controversial rootkit technology in audio CDs as an anti-piracy measure.

They’re all available as Dark Lanternist presents Faces of Greed. Available on CD, cassette, and 8-track. Vinyl available soon.

It was nice while it lasted. Spam comments have started appearing on the new Textpattern system as well.

Well, I’ll keep deleting ‘em as I find ‘em. In the meantime, guess the songs!

1. Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Rocket Queen” – “I’ve got a tongue like a razor – a sweet switchblade knife.”
2. Grateful Dead, “Casey Jones” – “This old engine makes it on time, leaves Central Station ‘bout a quarter to nine.”
3. Spin Doctors, “Yo Mama’s A Pajama” – “She goes beep beep beep down Sesame Street.”
4. Scarlet Pimpernel, “The Creation of Man” – “It’s bully for the billy for he’s willy-nilly male.”
5. Harry Nilsson, “You’re Breakin’ My Heart” – “All I want to do is have a good time – now I’m blue.”
6. The Donnas, “I Don’t Care (So There)” – “High school yum-yum, gimme some Henessey.”
7. Blackalicious, “Purest Love” – “One precious love, so good to me.”
8. U2, “Crumbs From Your Table” – “From the brightest star comes the blackest hole.”
9. Carbon Leaf [covering Ozzy Osbourne], “Crazy Train” – “Mental wounds still screaming, driving me insane.” [Multiple artists possible]
10. Pink Floyd, “Have a Cigar” [Thud] – “We’re just knocked out. We heard about the sell out, you gotta get an album out.”

And if you’re so inclined, there are still eight – count ‘em, eight – tracks left unguessed from the last time around.

I’ve done two “Guess Ten” entries, and each one has had only one line guessed. So, off we go again to see who can name the songs in my collection.

1. Randy Newman, “Cowboy” – “Wind that once blew free now scatters dust to the sky.”
2. Roy Orbison, “In the Real World” – “If only we could live in dreams.”
3. Dance Hall Crashers, “Lady Luck” – “Lucky charms and one-eyed Jacks won’t bring it back, the writing’s on the wall.”
4. Jekyll & Hyde Original Cast, “It’s a Dangerous Game” – “It’s a sin with a name, like a hand in a flame.”
5. Al Jolson, “Ragging the Baby to Sleep” – “Broke the bottle filled with milk. You’re feeling sad, that makes you mad.”
6. Blackalicious, First in Flight” – “Just put the pedal to the metal, see what you find.”
7. The Donnas, “Dirty Denim” – “I wonder why you’re so moody. Is it ‘cause you’ve got no booty?”
8. M.C. Chris, “DQ Blizzard” [Guessed by Thud] – “You could call me a mint, ‘cuz I make the green.”
9. Harry Nilsson, “One” [Co-guess by Fred and Thud] – “Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday.”
10. Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Mr. Brownstone” – “I used to do a little but a little wouldn’t do, so the little got more and more.”

You should know the rules by now – if you know the song and artist, drop it in the comments.

And, if you’re interested, the answers for last week’s Friday 10 are posted.

Internet cartoonist Scott Kurtz has come up with a lovely solution to this whole War on Christmas problem that I would repost here, except I’d rather not publish cartoons without the original artist’s permission. So click the link and share and enjoy.

It’s kind of sad that this “War on Christmas” thing is ruffling so many feathers on so many sides. I think we need to calm down for a second and remember what Christmas is all about.%

Designed with an actual Chainsaw lying in the middle of the R&D lab during brainstorming sessions, this massive sculpted controller is sure impressive. The attention to detail goes as far as having gory blood marks on the blade. When not chopping Zombies into pieces, the Resident Evil 4 Controller can rest on its stylish stand, on top on your TV, well at sight for the bill collectors knocking at your door. Very impressive in size, it will bring you fear and respect at the same time, yet light and ergonomic, it stays comfortable and does not affect gameplay at all.

Sweet.

Because only one song has been guessed in the entire week, answers have been posted for The Dollar Short Edition. Some of them may surprise you.

And heading into the second week of the game, we once again have one song out of ten guessed. That leaves nine songs to be identified. Yowza. Is my taste in music that obscure?

Some people have far too much money. So if you have an extra ten bucks that’s burning a hole in your pocket, may I suggest one of the most expensive film purchases you might make all year? My three-minute non-award-winning short for this year’s StockStock Festival (titled Der goldene russische Spion, der liebte zu töten) is now available from my storefront at Lulu. At $9.99, that’s almost six cents a second! Impress your friends with your complete and utter lack of thrift. Hey – while you’re at it, pick up a copy of The Art of Money Getting for an order that reflects the irony in your blackened soul. And think nothing of it when I decide three months from now that I need to release a special edition.

The long-awaited hand-cranked sub-$100 laptop from MIT has been unveiled. Kofi Annan likes it, people everywhere think it’s kinda neat. Intel doesn’t care for it.

“Mr. Negroponte has called it a $100 laptop—I think a more realistic title should be ‘the $100 gadget’,” Barrett, chairman of the world’s largest chipmaker, told a press conference in Sri Lanka on Friday. “The problem is that gadgets have not been successful.”

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has welcomed the development of the small, hand-cranked, lime-green devices, which can set up their own wireless networks and are intended to bring computer access to areas that lack reliable electricity.

“It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC,” he [Barrett] said. “Reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown up PC … not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power.”

First of all, isn’t the computing industry trying to move us toward dependency on “servers in the sky” that will deliver all of our software and system functionality? It seems to me that Microsoft has been trying to get us away from actually installing Office on our computers, and instead getting us to pay subscription fees to access the software on their servers. Besides, “servers in the sky” just sounds cool. It’s like an Apples In Stereo song.

And second, Barrett’s complaint that people in third world countries without reliable electricity won’t want the computers because they’re not full-functioned PC’s is a little bit like Ford insisting that consumers won’t want a fuel-efficient hybrid compact car because they really want a gas-guzzling SUV at fifteen times the cost while fuel costs $5 a gallon. On a theoretical level, it’s right. See, it shows an understanding of the consumer mind, but not much grasp on reality. People who want laptops want to be able to do laptop things with them. But for people in areas where they don’t have power, the hand crank is kind of a nice thing compared to brick that you have to plug in to your non-existent wall socket.

I’m sitting at a borrowed computer at the moment, so unfortunately I can’t just zip off and check out They Might Be Giants’ new podcast. You can, however. So let me know how it turns out.

So, only one song got guessed last week. I’ll post answers in a bit, but first – here’s another set of 10. And once again, my tastes are so obscure and my readership so limited that probably only one of these will get guessed, as well.

1. Del the Funky Homosapien, “Time is Too Expensive” – “My vast knowledge of rhymes is past college – blast, demolish, polish off all enemies.”
2. Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” [guessed by Thud] – “Your life is trite and jaded, boring and confiscated. If that’s your best, your best won’t do.”
3. Spin Doctors, “Bags of Dirt”- “Why do these hotel walls hang their strangeness on my own?”
4. Grateful Dead, “Minglewood Blues” – “The preacher call me a sinner, but his little girl call me a saint.”
5. Belle & Sebastian, “Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It”- “Honour forbids me, but honour damned – you have whined till you got what you want.”
6. The Hives, “See Through Head” – “You wanna cut a piece of cake, you gotta have a bit of blade.”
7. Black Eyed Peas, “Where is the Love?” – “In this world we livin’ in people keep on givin’ in, makin’ wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends.”
8. Mike Nesmith, “Mama Nantucket” – “Well, I don’t like to quarrel, but what about tomorrow? It’ll be the same as the past.”
9. M.I.A., “Galang” – “They say river’s gonna run through, work is gonna save you, pray and you will pull through.”
10. Jekyll and Hyde (Original Soundtrack), “I Need To Know” – “One thing is certain – the evil is stronger. Good fights a hopeless and desperate fight.”

If you know the track and/or the artist, drop it into the comments.