Zen Cruiser Rides Again

Finally after several months of repairs and waiting for parts my bike is fixed and on the road again. Long ordeals with radiator fans and relays held up my rinding season. It looks as if the only thing I might still need is a new battery. I need to stop and get this one tested. I ended up hard-wiring my radiator fan to an unused toggle switch because it won't turn on by itself when it should. So now the rides to and from work should be more plesent.

English Class Essay 2

This is the second essay for my English class. I recieved an "A+" for this one.

Explanatory Synthesis
By Zen Cruiser
English 101C, sect. 5B
March 21, 2006
Dr. M. L.

Pay Per Download Sites are Storming the Industry, No Rain in the Forecast

The file-sharing phenomenon has cost the recording industry billions of dollars in lost sales and reached new heights of copyright infringement. A small program called Napster has allowed computer users to download music from other computer users via the internet for free (Edwards 160). This new technology was the start of a revolution over the internet. Music industry corporations and artists claimed copyright infringements and the legal battle began. Napster lost its legal battle and was bought out and turned into a fee-based system (Edwards 161). Since the wide spread epidemic of file sharing exploded over the internet, the entertainment industry has been scrambling to provide fee based alternatives to file sharing that will attract users away from the free, but illegal, peer-to-peer systems.

In hopes of pulling people away from illegal file sharing, the recording industry has responded to the demands for selection and flexibility in music downloading with label backed services, but can’t seem to decide on the best method of providing the music people want (Jones and Benzuly 167). It seems that people really liked the idea that they could download songs on an individual basis. Record labels are built around the idea of the album, and some feel that selling music at the song level could lead to the end of the album concept. (Bockhorn 163). Selection was also an issue. Huge selections of music from all types of genre were available through the peer-to-peer networks used for illegal downloading. Price and delivery method were also issues. Some executive felt that online sales would hurt CD sales and made a decision to sell at or close to the price of a CD (Green 166). The fear of piracy has pushed some sites to monthly subscriptions with unlimited streaming, a method of viewing on demand but not actually downloading. The selection is, however, limited by the company that each site keeps. If your favorite artist isn’t on one of the labels that a site features, you won’t be able to buy their songs from that site. With all these problems, this new market has its work cut out if it intends to win the public away form peer-to-peer networking.

Several fee-based web sites are now offering many new features and payment plans to entice music lovers to pay for their music instead of downloading it illegally. Many new payment and downloading options are being offered to attract a broad base of new customers away from peer-to-peer file sharing. Sites now boast over 250,000 songs from the five largest record labels and many of the independent labels (Jones and Benzuly 169). With guaranteed quality and user-friendly interfaces to find the music you want, these sites are becoming much easier to use then file-sharing systems. Partnerships are being formed between companies that supply the music and companies like Real Networks who supply player technology to make listening even easier.

Pay sites still haven’t gotten it completely right. Several issues still make these sites difficult and limited. The music still costs money. In some cases you can pay as much for the music you download as you would for a CD from the store even though the cost of overhead for online music is almost zero (Green 166). Although many sites boast large collections of music, not all music is available at every site. You may need to have more then one membership to get all your favorite artists. Also, the peer-to-peer networks have a lot of music that the pay sites don’t have, such as alternative music and older and more obscure tracks. You may need to research several sites to make sure you can get the music in the format you want it in. Some sites offer downloadable MP3 formats that can be played on devices other then your computer while other sites offer unlimited streaming of songs to your computer only. You have to decide how you want to listen to your music and pick the site that is best for you.

With the introduction of Apple Computer’s iTunes and the iPod, a new player has jumped onto the scene and is taking a strong hold of the market. Apple secured the backing of the largest labels with the concept of a non-interoperable player and format. The iPod is Apple’s tool for listening to your music. It can be compared to the Walkman except that you can’t take the cassette out and stick it into another player. The iPod is the only player that will play music downloaded from iTunes. Despite the cost of the iPod device, iTunes and the iPod are selling fast. Apple is, however, beginning to run into some obstacles in Europe. A French law is in the process of being passed that would force Apple to share information about the file formats that keep iTunes from being copied. Apple has stated that if the law is passed it would result in "state-sponsored piracy". In a response issued after the law was initially approved, Apple said: "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers" (BBC.com)

The future of this broad market is still uncertain, but it is clear that a lot of work needs to be done to provide everyone the music they love in a simple inexpensive package. The market is still young and the direction it will ultimately take is uncertain. For now it seems that the marketing plans are beginning to work, to get people to make a mental shift into the pay per download idea and to pay for their music in general. The legal campaigns may never completely stop peer-to-peer file sharing, but the industry is attacking the problem from both angles and I’m sure they will put a severe dent in the issue. For now, though, we must muddle through as the industry continues to take shape and grow.

Works Cited

Bockhorn, Lee. “MP3 and Me: How I stopped Worrying and Learned to

Love Online Music File-Sharing (sort of)” He Weekly Standard.

October 16, 2002.

BBC.com. “Apple attacks plan to open iTunes” BBC News Online.

March 22, 2006.

< http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4833010.stm>.

Edwards, Catherine. “The Napster Challenge” Insight on the News.

January 2001.

Green, Heather. “Digital Media: Don’t Clamp Down Too Hard”

Business Week. October 14, 2002.

Jones, Sarah, and Sarah Benzuly. “Paying to Play” Mix. May 1, 2003.

English Class Essay

The following article was writen for my English class. I recieved an "A" on this paper.

Critique of Brent Staples’ Essay
By Zen Cruiser
English 101C, sect. 5B
February 18, 2006
Dr. M. L.

Crying the Blues for Pop Music

Brent Staples is an editorial writer for the New York Times and holds a PhD in psychology from The University of Chicago. He was also the winner of Anisfield Wolff Book Award in 1995. In his editorial “Driving Down the Highway, Mourning the Death of American Radio” published in the New York Times June 8, 2003, he attempts to persuade the readers of the New York Times that American radio is too commercialized to be worth listening to for any length of time. He goes so far as to insinuate that commercial radio restricts our freedom of speech and is, in general, a detriment to our culture.

In his essay, Staples states that despite the crime rate in his neighborhood he sees the purchase of a CD player as a symbol of “despair that commercial radio . . . has become so bad as to be unlistenable” (85). Radio stations have become a big money business. Once congress increased the number of stations a single company could own, the value of stations increased dramatically. Now only a few companies own almost half the airways in the country. The large corporate owners have large corporate debt and place their focus more on making money then on quality programming. They are cutting corners by cutting staff and increasing advertising to as much as thirty minutes per hour. The shortcomings of corporate ownership are apparent in the lack of attention to local news and issues. Concentrated ownership’s ability for wholesale censorship across large audiences is an even more important issue. This type of ownership, he feels, is killing “the heart of popular culture itself” (86). Independent radio of the past was important to the local community as well as the country by allowing new musicians to showcase a variety of musical styles, which brought about the popularity of many famous musicians. Staples concludes that record companies are trying to duplicate the popular music that currently gets airplay and, in doing so, are creating an unimaginative music scene.

Brent Staples’ essay starts off in a very odd manner with references to crime in Brooklyn. A subject that seems very far from the topic of his essay and yet he uses it much like the “hook” in a song to grab your attention and lead you toward the bold statement that radio has become “unlistenable” (85). His references to the cost of a radio station are vague at best, and he makes no reference to specific sales data. He claims that radio stations 25 years ago were “as important . . . as city hall” (86). He also claims that DJ’s were let go in an almost wholesale fashion and the ones that remain do not define their area as DJ’s in the past did. In my local area Jeff Walker, Rocky and Sue, Chris Michaels, Bear Man and Keith, and Ken Mathews are just a few of the DJ’s that have been on the air for many years and help to define the stations for whom they work. Many of his references to factual data are just as vague and difficult to confirm or deny. Because of this, it is difficult to say if Staples used his information fairly. Since none of his information was contrary to the point of the essay, it seems that Staples has been biased in his selection of information. Although some issues may actually lie somewhere under the references to his childhood and lament for radio of old, he never really addresses any of them beyond grand accusations.

The essay is filled with emotionally loaded wording and unsupported facts. Why would Staples feel that today’s radio is unlistenable? At first it seems that he is just not happy with today’s music. “Spin it yourself,” he says of pop, rock and country’s “mind-numbing list of songs” (86). Also, he argues that commercial stations are bland and repetitive because they are so expensive. I don’t see the connection between expensive and bland. It would seem to me that the larger the expense of a station, the more important it would be to have exciting programming to attract listeners. Stations of old may have kept advertising down to 8 to 12 minutes in an hour and now you might hear up to 30 minutes of commercials at peek times, but it would seem that radio is just keeping up with TV and newspapers that see similar amounts of advertising if not more. Squeezing “every cent out of every link in the chain” (86) is a corporate fact of our economy. If today’s companies don’t make money, they get bought out or go under. Congress may have risen the cap on how many stations could be owned by one company, but that is doubtful that was the sole cause of today’s radio formats that Staples seems to detest so much. Censorship issues are the only plausible argument against corporatized radio that Staples makes, but he over emotionalizes the argument by saying that the issues go beyond censorship “to the heart of popular culture itself” (86) making it seem as though corporatized radio is killing our very way of life. Elvis and R.E.M. may have become popular by barnstorming the country, but the radio I here today is filled with new artists. I hear as many “one-hit-wonders” now as I did in the past. If Brent Staples feels that pop music is flat and unimaginative, might I suggest to him an oldies station?

While I agree that having “one voice” across the nation in radio would be a bad situation, I don’t believe that we are near that point, as Staples would have us believe. The format of radio has undoubtedly changed over the years, as has the music itself. Radio stations have picked a theme and that is what they play. Chris Michaels, a DJ at WSBG in Stroudsburg, told me a 500-song play list is the industry standard and DJ’s today don’t pick the music for their show. Program directors are the ones who decide what gets played when. It would seem that Staples wants the old free radio style he grew up with rather then categorized radio where each station plays it’s own genre. Undoubtedly, corporatized radio has issues that need to be discussed and addressed, but I think Brent Staples spent more time crying the blues over the loss of his old music than addressing the issues of today’s corporate radio.

A long hot ride but a nice day

So again the wife and I have no kids for the weekend. Time to do some riding! Where to go? Hmmm. Where to go? Finally we decided to hit the shore. To Seaside Heights NJ we would go. We planned out our trip and gathered our gear for a day of fun. We should be out of the house by noon and to the shore by 3:00pm. Then we got a phone call. My wife's ex was fighting with our daughter and it took forever on the phone for her to calm things down. We almost bagged the whole trip and picked her up early. But, things did calm down and we finally got out of the house, filled the gas tank and pulled onto the road at 2:00pm. Well, getting there by 3:00 is a bit out of the question, but we were determined to go anyway.

The ride started out great. It was a beautiful day and the combination of whispy and fluffy white clouds set on the crisp blue sky was accented by the lush green of the western Jersey foothills. The sun was bright and hot that day. Temperatures were in the 90's and the humidity around a thousand percent. A perfect day to be wearing all black in direct sunlight. We stopped for gas and a rest on route 18 south and had some ice cream and drinks. Once we were regenerated, we hopped back on eager to get to the shore.

Well, we took 18 down to 35 trying to avoid the main highways. That was a mistake! About the time we saw the sign that said, "Seaside Heights 20mi" traffic stopped. Now traffic generally sucks on a bike on any day, and I refuse to risk my life with 20 miles of riding down the shoulder of the road. This, however, was not ordinary traffic and on a very hot day. Stop and Go traffic? No, No, No! This was Inch, Break, and Balance traffic. Twenty miles of perpetual clutch grabbing that makes you feel like Popeye The Sailor injected his spinach with steroids and fed it intravenously right into your left arm. All the while the Sun was baking our right sides to a firm medium-well. I looked down on my temperature gauge that was now pegged firmly on "Your heads are taffy" and begged for a break in traffic. Another mile down the road I was rewarded with a slight sea breeze that cooled us from the left. As nice as it was, I got the sensation of standing too close to the camp fire on a cool summer night. One side was cool and the other was burning up. Luckily, the breeze and some shade trees cooled the engine down to "Your Rings a warping like a Slinky". When finally we arrived in Seaside Heights we were glad to be off the bike to get a little air flow to our posterior sections of anatomy. After prying my fingers from the clutch, of course.

We piled a handful of quarters into the meter and headed off to the boardwalk. My wife, while growing up, spent a lot of time at the boardwalk, so she was very happy to see many of the places where she hung out as a kid, like Lucky Leo's Arcade and some of the rides she used to love. We walked the boardwalk most of the day, played some games and did some shopping. The place is a woman's shopping haven for sure. We cured our hunger with a boardwalk sausage sandwich and a steak sandwich and walked again. We found a little shop that made vinyl decal graphics and started looking around. We each bought a decal. She got a fairy for her car. The same fairy that I put on the back of her helmet. I got "ZenCruzer" to put on my bike in some cool lettering. As the night wore on my wife wanted to hit some of the great clubs, but we were told that they don't really start hopping until around 1:00 am and we were pushing midnight already. We decided to head home and save the clubbing for another time in the interest of safe and awake driving.

We loaded our purchases and prizes into the bags and headed out. This time we were going to take the more direct route home. The air was crisp and clean. The temperature was just cool enough to keep me awake, but not so cold that I needed my gloves. The wife, however, got a bit chilly on the ride, so we wrapped her legs in a beach towel, tucking it in and under her legs to keep it secure. The moon was about one quarter and growing, so it cast just enough light to make the few clouds in the sky glow softly. The ride home was easy and smooth, almost like gliding along in a canoe on a slow wide river. My wife rode close to me, hugging my back for warmth and sensual closeness instead of leaning back into the comfort of her backrest. It was nice to feel her there while I drove instead of making the occasional check in the mirror or reach to her leg to check on her. Since we don't have helmet microphones, there is no real conversation while riding. That could very well be a GOOD thing, but don't tell her I said that. When finally we reached home, we climbed off the bike and what seemed to be right into bed and slept in the next day (or same day actually). The ride was the longest we have taken and may have been a bit too long for her with the traffic, but I'll get her back on soon. Maybe next time we'll try the shore on the WEST side of Jersey.

Swimming with the SHARKS!

The aquarium nearest my home has a special program that lets you take a swim in the shark tank. Yes, they make you pay to almost get eaten. Capitalism at it's best. The first time we tried to do this was in June '05 and we were turned away because we did not have a reservation and we showed up later in the day. We decided to go back at the end of July or mid August. I called several times to make a reservation, but I never got through. We only had one chance to go for the rest of the summer, so we got up early and took the two hour drive to get there at opening. I had read the website (www.adventureaquarium.com) and found out all the things I would need. I was ready! After some begging and pleading they said I could get into the 2:45 group. They only run three groups since it takes two hours for each group.

I was happy as I could be at that point. Then the realization of just how stupid I can be hit me right between the eyes, I forgot my bathing suit. DOH! That's it. I have to go get one. I sent the wife and kids into the aquarium and got some directions from a local to the nearest Wal-Mart. Like the proverbial "Bat-Out-Of-Hell" I was off. I raced through town looking for the landmarks I could remember and low and behold I actually found it. In late July retail stores all over the country begin a transition from summer to "Back-to-School" merchandise. The men's bathing suits could now be found only on the discounted horrible pattern, super small or XXXXXXL, nobody wants me rack. After searching through suits that would have me singing very high notes indeed and the god awful floral patterns, I found a medium, solid yellow, basic, actually normal suit. Off to the register and fly the bat back to hell. Now with suit and all my other needs, I caught up to the wife and kids to kill time in the aquarium.

Actually the aquarium is fantastic, but my enthusiasm was pointed in one direction only. In the mean time, my kids got their faces painted and we had a long slow walk through the aquarium. When the time came, I was very anxious. The family had a 3:00 show in the 4D theater so they left as I was headed up to the sharks. They took us down to the locker room area and sized us up for wet suits and explained how to get into them and how they should fit. It's kind of like putting the skin back on that banana only harder. We showered with the suits on to water log them and get any oils out of our hair and off our faces. Once we were wet, we headed back to the Shark Shack for some instruction. They explained about the sharks and rays that we would encounter and went over some safety precautions. While we were in the training my family showed up out side the Shark Shack to watch me get eaten. Then into the water we went. The wet suits are like full body life preservers. You can't sink in them. It was an odd feeling when swimming to not be under the water, but on it. We were not to make any splashing or sudden noises, so we all swam using just our arms for the most part.

The shark tank has a shelf built around the outer edge about 3-4 feet from the surface. The shelf has a half wall that looks like rock to form a kind of trench for us to sit in, well float in. The trench has two open areas for the sharks to exit if they get into the trench. The two divers that went into the trench with us were filled with comments about you only need to be the second slowest swimmer if anything bad happens. They blocked the exits of the trench with their bodies while we watched the sharks. It is an oddly silent world and the sharks glide through it with almost no effort at all. They are beautiful creatures. I could almost immediately tell the sharks apart. Each one has some distinguishing features. One has an odd pattern of brown spots on its sides and another has three welts on the top of the right fin. Visibility in the water was strange. Bands of light rippled down into the water like the suns rays after a summer storm breaking through the clouds. But it was the combination of shadows where the sharks always seemed to pop out from.

With a signal from our guides we moved to the area where the rays are kept. We needed to be very careful as the Butterfly Ray was injured and is too stubborn to move. They explained how to feed the rays and took us out one at a time to feed them. I put my hand into the water and looked around. A Cow-Nosed ray came out of nowhere to grab the snack. It caught me off guard and I tripped over my flippers and stumbled a bit. Then I felt a strange feeling at my knee like someone was pressing the vacuum cleaner hose against my leg. When I looked down, another Cow-Nosed ray was sucking at my leg. It stared working its way up my leg. The Cow-Nosed rays were very cute, like a Pug that can swim. So ugly they are cute.

We all swam around with the rays for a while and then moved out to the shark area again. This time I was on the end by one of the shark exits. Well, actually I was half way in the exit. I could only hold myself back with one hand. It was less active this time though and I was afraid that I would not see many sharks on the way out. I sank myself into the water a little bit more and looked out into the shadows. A small round shape began for form in front of me. It took a moment to realize that the shape was headed straight for me. The the clear image of a Sand Tiger shark appeared in the lights from above and he was indeed headed straight for me. Ten feet away and he wasn't turning. Eight feet and moving slowly. Six. Four! At that he turned to my left and seemed to look right through me with that beady little 'I eat Italian hit men' eye of his. And then he swam away. I looked over to the diver next to my and gave a thumbs up to say 'I'm Ok' and 'That was COOL' all at once. The second time the shark did that I got the feeling he was looking for some lunch. At the THIRD time I was thinking that this was not funny any more and he should knock it off. Before a forth time could come around it was time to head back and out adventure was over. But, I did not leave with a feeling of being glad to get out of there. I was beyond words with enjoyment. I had a great time in the tank. It's something I don't ever want to forget.