Geographic Countdown

Announcing the Geographic Countdown to the Decemberists' 2011 Popes of Pendarvia World Tour

FAQ
Q: Wh-what?!?
A: I'm so bored of the tired old representation of a clock ticking backwards to represent the start of some major event (e.g. space shuttle lift-offs, Tours de France, retirement, dental appointments). So, instead of watching clocks tick backwards, now you can watch a small icon representing a van make its way from Portland, Or to New York, NY instead. Of course, this virtual roadtrip is meant to symbolize the Decemberists climbing aboard they're tour bus and driving off to there opening show in NY. I chose the date of their tour announcement (Nov 15) as their departure date from Portland and the night of the first show in NY (Jan 24) as the arrival date. When the little van gets to NYC, then the tour will begin. Exciting, huh? It's kind of like an Advent Calendar - when you poke into it you will find all kinds of useless goodness.

Q: Ok, that's about the stupidest idea that I've ever heard of in my life...
A: Well then, you haven't really lived, have you...

Q: Why?
A: Software Developers are a lot like musicians. We slog through the same old set list day after day for throngs of adoring fans (known as "bosses" in our world). In the off hours, though we sometimes pick up our instruments and fiddle around searching for something new and creative for a future possible gig or simply as an outlet. The only payoff that I really hope to get is that, in your mind, my name, alanherod, may perhaps become synonymous with "useless web application" (that's alanherod and useless web app). I'm honing some mad skillz.

Q: Alright, that was amusing for, like, 2 seconds.
A: But wait, there's more! Check back occasionally for more amusing features to be added as time allows. For example, the view outside the Virtual D Tour bus, the weather, a can opener, etc...

Q: Wow. You really suck at HTML layout.
A: yeah...

Q: Are you a stalker?
A: I haven't stalked anyone recently. This little app does not represent anything that has anything to do with the real Decemberists except that the little van should show up at a show location at about the same time the real Decemberists take the stage at the real world location. That is, you should not camp along the highway waiting for a tour bus to drive by. (But if you do, make sure to get photo documentation.)

Q: I have a suggestion!
A: Great! Hit the "About" link at the bottom. It will take you to a blog where you can post a suggestion as a comment.

Q: I don't think that you'll like my suggestion.
A: Thanks for reading this far from all the people in my head who helped build this application and enjoy!

The Decemberists Undercover Project

I think that I've decided to rename BAD to "The Decemberists Undercover Project".

Announcing the BAD Project

Okay. Maybe there is a better name for the project...

Regardless, I'd like to announce the Best Album - Decemberists (BAD) Project. My idea is to recreate the Decemberists albums track-for-track except use Fan versions of the songs culled from YouTube videos instead of Colin Meloy and company. Eventually, I plan to implement a way for users to vote in head-to-head competitions between videos. For example, say that there are two fan covers of a Decemberist song like "The Infanta". Users will have the opportunity to choose their favorite between the two. Over time, perhaps, the set of winning videos will represent a quality recreation of the original albums. So far, I've started searching YouTube for covers songs from Picaresque.

Check out the current (incomplete) set of entries at the Albums page of the This Falderal website.

Suggest

This-Falderal will be a site geared towards user interaction eventually. However, for now, if there are some Decemberists YouTube videos that you would like to see in our collection, please feel free to suggest them by adding a comment with the YouTube web address of the video.

This Falderal

This blog is just a collection of nonsense regarding the evolution of my new mashup:
http://this-falderal.appspot.com

Thanks for visiting!