Your Laugh for the Day™: The FuMP strikes again!

I can't say enough about the wonderful group filkertom, lukeski, devospice and some friends of theirs have set up called The Funny Music Project, or "The FuMP" (www.thefump.com). It's really quite ambitious: several very talented comedy-music artists dedicate themselves to putting out not just one, but two brand-new funny songs by different artists each week, for absolutely free-gratis-for-nothing download. It's already resulted in quite an impressive (not to say hilarious) collection of tunes in the few months since its launch, and if your taste in music runs toward parodies and comedy, as mine does, it's definitely a "must bookmark" site. (You can also download their stuff as a podcast automagically each week, if you have iTunes or a good RSS news-feed reader on your computer; see The FuMP's site for more info.) In addition to Luke, ShoeBox and the Smith Lord, Sudden Death, Worm Quartet, Jon Coulton and Raymond & Scum are among the talents The FuMP boasts on its roster so far.

New on the site this week is a parody of a recent Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit by the Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah." As you can read on Wikipedia's page about the song, it has created quite a bit of, umm...stress for its real-life subject, a woman PWTs lead singer Tom Higgenson admits to lusting after but who has no such interest in him, being already quite happily taken. (ADDENDUM, Fri. 8/31, 11:12 AM: Apparently someone has taken enough of a dislike of Plain White T's to vandalize the aforementioned Wikipedia page. I'd fix it myself, but (a) I'm at work and (b) I can't recall enough of the original text to do so accurately. I have reported the defacement and hope WP's staff will act swiftly.)

Well, when The FuMP's Robert Lund heard this, he felt the song's popularity and backstory cried out for a parody in response. The result: "Re: Your Song About My Client, Delilah," the latest FuMP offering. It's a hoot even if you've never heard the original, and has been called the best pop-hit sendup since "White & Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovic (and it may well deserve that high praise, IMHO). Check it out!

Two would-be Moses figures to Apple: Let my iPhones go!

One of the biggest knocks against Apple Inc.'s much-ballyhooed iPhone is its being "locked in" to AT&T's cellular network. This means users who pony up the five or six C-notes required to purchase one have two problems: (a) no freedom of choice about which provider to use with it (a big issue for users already contracted to one of AT&T's competitors, such as Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile or Verizon Wireless, who cannot switch without triggering hefty early-termination penalty fees) and (b) being stuck with AT&T's comparatively slower-speed EDGE network for data transmission, rather than being able to access networks using the more modern and speedier (but less widely available) 3G standard. Evidently, Steve Jobs & Co. decided that having a signal, even a slower one, in more locations was better than higher speed but spottier access. (Insiders at Apple have claimed--anonymously, natch--that the next generation iPhone will give users 3G access.)

Now word has come of the existence of software hacks to break Ma Bell's lock on the iPhone, from two sources: a New Jersey teenager who has already been offered a lucrative job teaching such hacks to cellphone techs, and a company that sells software to break the lock--or will if it can get past high-powered lawyers for both AT&T and Apple, who are working overtime to put the kibosh on both schemes. Both sides are citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as backing for their positions, Apple and AT&T for illegal breaching of software protection measures and the hackers for exemptions to the DMCA announced last year by the U.S. Copyright Office. Based on coverage I've read so far, it looks very much like, one way or another, more and more iPhone owners will very soon be able to take their expensive new toys and go play on more than one network, and say "buh-bye" to AT&T.

osewalrus, you're the resident telecom legal eagle on my f-list; any thoughts? Anyone else? (My interest is purely academic; longtime Mac nut/Apple fan though I am, I'm not planning to splurge on an iPhone, unlocked or not, anytime soon -- my trusty little Motorola TracFone works just fine, thank you.)

(no subject)

Junior Bush, in a speech yesterday, complained that his now-resigned former Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has had "his good name dragged through the mud." Not to put too fine a point on it...meadow muffins! Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, as NPR News points out, have expressed frustration with Gonzales' actions and doubt as to the veracity of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (So inconsistent were his under-oath statements regarding the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys, he was actually offered a chance to amend his testimony by the committee, and members thereof publicly considered charging him with perjury.)

One person, and only one, is responsible for "dragging Gonzales' name through the mud": Gonzales himself. (Two, if he did so, as I and many others suspect, on orders from the President himself.)