a RBNBR primer

Some of you may be curious about the way things work at red and black is the new black and red, so I've decided to do a FAQ page. Even though few (or none) of you have actually asked these questions.

1. What's the deal with those post titles?

There isn't really a "deal" with those. About 99.68% of the time, these are song lyrics.

2. Yeah, but it seems like they don't have anything to do with the post itself. What gives?

They're just song lyrics. That's all. Sometimes it'll be a song that's actually in my head, sometimes it'll be a lyric that I admire. Sometimes it'll be there for no reason.

3. So they're not even related to the "now playing" feature? I don't get it.

No. they're not related to that feature. There will almost never be any relation between the music that is playing on my speakers and the song referenced in the post title.

4. Why?

Just because.

5. Pretend I care for a second. How will I know where the song lyrics come from?

You won't. If you do a google search of those exact words, you'll probably get an answer. If you really, really need to know and google won't tell you, you can ask me.

6. So... What about this "now playing" feature? What's the deal? Is it like a "what's in heavy rotation at the moment, or is it what you're literally listening to as you write?

The album linked at the end of the post is what's actually playing as I write the post. I'm an "album" kind of guy, so I'll let the whole album play from start to finish.

7. Linked?!?

Yeah. The little picture of the album cover has a link to a listening station for that album. just mouse-over the picture for details and click on it to go to the listening station. More often than not, it's linked to amazon.com, where you can also purchase the album if you want to. I would recommend buying your records from independent stores, but they don't usually have on-line listening posts.

8. Some of these fancier blogs have their own on-board jukeboxes. Why don't you do something like that so I don't have to leave the comfort of red-new-black?

I'm not smart enough to figure out the code required for something like that. Besides, it's too hard for me to pick out individual songs.

9. You don't get out much, do you?

No.

10. What's with all the talk about Scrabble?

It's one of my passions. I play a lot of competitive Scrabble.

11. Competitive?

Yeah. I play in a club and I go to tournaments and stuff like that. There's a whole competitive side to the game that most people don't know about. We take it quite seriously.

12. What? Like you get really pissed when you lose? Is that what you mean?

No. Not like that. But I study word lists and strategies. It's mainly about memorization and learning mnemonic devices. There's a lot of work involved with being a "good" Scrabble player.

13. Are you "good"?

I'm better than most people, but within the world of competitive play, I'm sort of average. Like a baseball player stuck at the "A" level. Better than amateur ballplayers, but not among the elite professional players.

14. You don't get out much, do you?

I just told you. No.