The following is the refreshing Licensing Agreement from Winamp’s new developers beta of WinAmp 3:

This is beta software. Play with it as much as you like, but don’t blame us if it melts your computer into a pile of scrap metal or steals your girlfriend. Check out the readme.txt for some features to try out.

Is that not much more effective than ICQ’s Licensing Agreement? Both companies are owned by the same mega-corporation, btw.

Along the same lines, also check out another of Winamp’s download agreements.

Now that we live in the age of sincerity, I thought I would give it a shot. To be clear, however sincere this post may purport to be, it pales in comparison to Rob’s classic Easter post.

Due to a variety of recent life circumstances, I have found myself, on occasion, in the capable and caring hands of my family. Growing up in North America, family isn’t something a young man is overtly taught to value. Family, rather, is term homophobic politicians use to convey a baseless and dangerously vague set of values. Perhaps as a result of this, I have been surprised to find that I am genuinely grateful and appreciative of my family.

At a stage in life where freedom and independence are paramount, I am, perhaps in some part due to this very freedom, only now beginning to understand the value of family. For this, I am thankful.

What are you thankful for?

The good boys of radiohead are finally going to officially release a recording of their song True Love Waits. Apparently from the OK Computer era, the song is at least as strong as some of their best album tracks. Apparently they’ve yet to produce a studio recording to their satisfaction

The song will be included on the live I Might Be Wrong EP which will be released in November.

If you go fishing for versions of the song (and you should, the keyboard arpeggios will make you cry) you should also look for the many varied versions of the The Bends-era track, Killer Cars.

Eels have a new album out: “Souljacker.” Rock and roll with horns used sparingly. The usual brilliant lyrics.

Oct. 4th at Confed. Centre Library at 8pm. I will be introducing a poet I’ve never read. He is Bruce Taylor. He has also written a book about puppeteering! Admission is free. Nice people get coffee and cookies or something. Muffins, maybe.

If you are a fulltime UPEI student, and have two hours to spare on most Wednesdays, The Cadre will give you twenty five dollars. You will go where we tell you. You will put copies of the paper there. This is entirely legal.

If you can create original graphics that closely resemble elements from cold-war era soviet propaganda posters please let me know. This is a very serious request.

New aioku. Check it. Go.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Onion this week. Last week’s edition didn’t come out because of the WTC/Pentagon massacres.

The Onion did an entire edition about last week’s terrorism. I was amazed by how well they handled it. Two things in particular are God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule and then the Talking To Your Child About The WTC Attack sections.

The writers there are amazing.

For those who haven’t picked up on his self-serving hints, let it be known to all that award winning poet* and aov genius Matthew Dorrell is now the Editor-in-Chief of The Cadre, the student newspaper at the University of Prince Edward Island.

I have criticized The Cadre in the past for reading as though it was written by five people with an intended audience of those same five people (I’m in trouble now – those five people are half of the aov readership). Matt’s first two issues have been interesting and point to an awareness of an audience beyond the dingy basement of Main Building where the paper is produced. The second issue also made tasteful use of a stock illustration. This is a remarkable feat in of itself (I’ll post a scan when I get the chance). I’m not surprised, but I am encouraged.

Congratulations Matt.

In semi-related news, watch UPEI’s Alumni Gym (and future site of their new Student Centre) burn to the ground.

In English Lit the other day, we were discussing an English trick I was rather fond of. Sadly, I forgot the name of it. But. In my desperate search for “metaphor+compound+word” I found this list of very cool words for things I didn’t know were defined.

I did learn that saying things like “Whale-road” for Ocean was a kenning, but there are some other cool ones there too.

I now believe that Coolbreeze is the master of tmesis.

I’ve been reluctant to comment on the events of Tuesday, September 11th, as I am afraid of contributing to what is becoming a wall of white noise. So much rumor and rhetoric is flying is every direction that I fear that any comments on the subject, regardless of their nature and content, will only help to bury us deeper in circular arguments and premature speculation.

It is for these reasons that aov has been dormant for the last few days. Rob made an initial post early in the day on Tuesday and a few readers replied. As it became clear what was unfolding we decided to remove the post (and the replies). I was afraid of the conversations that may ensue with such fresh anger and fear. I didn’t feel we (or anyone, for that matter) would have anything constructive to say so soon after the events and with so little concrete information. What I fear most is a permanent record of our short-sighted anger and ignorance at historical turning point.

In an email from Matt, he wisely remarked that “This is something that will be talked about for the rest of our lives; there is no need to begin today.”

A few strange days have passed and I have received several emails from regular aov readers honouring our decision but respectfully suggesting that the aov readership is both ready and capable of having a worthwhile conversation. I agree.

Some interesting phenomenon I’ve observed in the last few days:

• There has been a disappointing amount of disrespectful, dishorourable, prematurely speculative, and accusatory online discussions (as there are no social repercussions online – you can make an offensive comment, shut off your computer, and walk away).
• At the same time, there has been much positive and healing online discussion. A conversation of those who have found refuge and healing through music struck me as particularly fresh and constructive at the appropriately named Signal vs. Noise website.
• The simple technology of the Internet amazed me in a way that it hasn’t since I received my first email or sent my instant message. Amazon.com setup a simple donation-via-creditcard system for the Red Cross (which I’m sure many of you have seen by now). When I first discovered the page about $100,000 had been donated. I refreshed the page (a web-developers habit, I suppose) and the figure jumped by a few thousand dollars. Surprised, I refreshed the page again, and the figure jumped by thousands more. My best estimates put the rate of donation at approximately $100,000/hour. However, it wasn’t the amount that I found most compelling. Rather, it was the unfamiliar, tangible, and immediate feeling of community and participation I felt in knowing that so many people from so many places were doing exactly what I was doing at the time.
• “People don’t sacrifice themselves for no reason.” – from a post at Dave W.’s Scripting.com (link via Reinvented.net).
• “New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs.” – from the powerful article, An Afghan-American Speaks at Salon.com.
• This is a difficult thing to write about. Clichés such as “in the wake of…” are difficult to avoid. Words like tragedy, atrocity, and massacre seem cheap and inadequate. Even in this post, I’ve used the phrase, “the events of Tuesday, September 11th” for lack of a better description.

I was brought back to a family vacation years ago where I can clearly remember standing on the roof of the World Trade Center looking down at our tiny van below. I’m having great difficultly reconciling this memory with the images of this same building crumbling to the ground. I do want to hear how these events have affected you personally. I do not want to hear accusations and speculation.

When I heard the reporters talking about this this morning (before the tower fell) I thought it was a joke MP3 (War of the Worlds) or a Red Alert 3 trailer.

I saw the video of the second plane hitting the tower. It looked like a movie. What’s going on?