Political Nonsense of the Day

I thought I would write my first post in response to the able commentary by my good friend and colleague, the aptly named Mr. Bitterness.

Now, I tend to follow politics pretty closely. Not as compulsively, absurdly close as I did in January, but more than I probably should. Right now the only thing driving the news cycle is Bittergate: the uproar surrounding Obama’s explanation as to why some voters feel, well, bitter. Now, I don’t think those comments were terribly well-advised, and coming from a rural background myself, I can see why some people would resent them, coming as they do from a Harvard-educated, cosmopolitan law professor. What I cannot understand is why they’ve caused such widespread hoopla. Whatever problems we have in the States, a lack of issues for presidential candidates to address is not one of them. And in the hierarchy of issues, this one is slightly above how much John Edwards paid for a haircut.

I am reminded once again of why sound bite culture is so depressing. Rather than actually talking about things, we get dragged down into discussing, say, what McCain meant by the now famous “100 years” comment. Is this really any way to pick a president?

Excuse the rant: perhaps I’m just bitter.

Celebrating 300 with a soundtrack!

Probably almost 20 years ago... long before I had a blog... long before I had a radio show (man I wish I still had one)... long before I was even 4 feet tall, my brother and I started an adventure by sitting on the edge of our beds and recording songs off the radio to create a mixtape.

The first of our mixtape adventures were titled Total Silliness and I think there was a follow-up, Total Silliness II. Someday I'll uncover these tapes somewhere in my mom's house. In the years that followed, I have created untold numbers of music mixes for friends. In college I had a show that basically created a weekly mixtape over the air on the campus radio station. Now, in celebration of The Best Way's 300th post, I bring you a mix, presented in a new format:

http://ice9.muxtape.com/

The website Muxtape.com allows people to create mixes by uploading mp3s. Once they're up, anyone can listen to them (that means you!)... and if you like the music, you can hop over to Amazon.com and buy at least some of it on mp3 (or CD, if you like). The link above should take you to a page that looks like a tracklist... but if you click on any song it should start playing. As of when I'm posting, in my experience, muxtapes tend to play best on either a mac or on internet explorer, not on firefox. I hate to say that, as I love Firefox, and it's what I'm using to post right now... but it's true.

Announcement: SOMETHING NEW

Red Handed, originally uploaded by Chambo25.

The Best Way To Have a Good Idea is about to turn 300... 300 posts, that is. I've had the blog up for a little over a year and a half (start was in August/September 06) and I feel like I've recently hit a bit of a stride in terms of posting content at least every few days... often multiple times a day. Still, I've had the feeling like it could be something more dynamic, more fun, even more random than what I alone can generate. For awhile now I've considered taking the step I'm about to describe so...

Today, in the 299th post ever, after a weekend marked by theft, running, driving, and omelets on-the-go, I want to mark the beginning of something special and NEW (and exciting) in the world of this blog!

That new thing is the introduction of the first two official non-John contributors to the blog. I'm pleased to officially add SenorChomp and Teknojo (you may know them by different names) to our contributing crew of randomness seekers, oddness posters, lovers of the strange, the unusual, the beautiful, the sublime. The exact nature of when, what, and how they'll be posting is still to be determined... but what I can say is this:

Other contributors are welcome. I've thought through some people to invite, but if you would like to be a part of the action. If you have ideas that could be part of the "lots," then drop me a line. You can start by commenting on this post, if you don't have other means to contact me and we can take it from there. This is a completely new idea, and may snowball into other bigger changes down the line... but for now, that's what I've got.

So, while I wanted to use this picture along side a post about someone being caught "red handed" I think it works in this regard:

I look into the future of The Best Way and I see more randomness, more voices, more interesting stuff and hopefully more readers, more fun, and a more dynamic conversation!

Here here! 300, here we come!

UPDATE:

VeniceJazz aka DJ Copernicus, a founding member of Silent K and former co-host and master of the bait-and-switch at Live Sex on the Radio... will also join the team, occasionally contributing his random reflections, tidbits, and the hilarity he finds on the internets. He'll do this whenever, of course, he has free time, which is next-to-never, but that's cool.