You can use a news reader or other application (such as web-based apps like My Yahoo!) to read content from this and other sites without having to actually go there. The advantage is that you can see what’s going on in the world around you without ever having the leave the application (or site) that you’re looking at. New articles are delivered to you (instead of the other way around), so you don’t ever have to remember to check in.

For instance, I’ve got my Thunderbird set up with a whole slew of news feeds. Instead of actually checking in with BoingBoing, Huffington Post, Ze Frank, and Pitchfork every day, I let them come to me. I get all of the content I want, delivered to me almost as if it were an e-mail.

You can find all sorts of applications out there that will read news feeds for you and put them all in one place for you to check out.

To add a feed, look for the icon, which may vary from site to site, or a link, usually saying something like “RSS”, “XML Feed”, or some suchlike. Copy the link and add it to your client application (follow their instructions).

You can get feed links for this site toward the bottom of the page, in the sidebar (under “syndicate”). There are links to add this site in a variety of ways.

Special tip: you can append “/feed/” to the end of the URL for any category or page on this site. For example, to keep track of updates on the “podcasts » songs” category, you would use: http://jeremyjarratt.com/category/podcasts/songs/feed/

Extra special tip: There’s also a comments feed at jeremyjarratt.com/comments/feed/

See also:

• Yongology: What’s a feed?
• Copyblogger: What the heck is RSS?

Rising from my chair and extinguishing one of my last cigarette butts in my desk ashtray, I found that I had a melody already in my head, complete with an accompaniment of washing, ethereal rhythm guitar. It was nothing more than background noise; the blips and bleeps that randomly orchestrate themselves into patterns of thought or waves of sound. The type that usually functions merely as a filter through which to perceive the void in front and behind you as the world, as reality, often taking on the arduous task of giving you a rhythm with which to shuffle your feet forward.

And then it struck me: I had a bit of an interesting thing going on… I wondered if I should take a moment to figure out the melody and the chords underneath, so as not to forget it when I awake, seven hours later and a completely newborn human being all over again.

As I considered how best to record this thing without having to actually turn on my digital multitrack recorder, it hit me once more, as if to carry the point home: what if it goes with the thumping, driving, slow groove I’ve already got? Yet again was I assaulted with more forceful, intuitive instruction from within: Turn the fucking recorder on, you idiot! Do not lose this! It is perfect!

I turned on the recorder, hastily gathered together a few effects pedals (after trying to figure out how best to save the current patches onboard the VS-880EX recorder for the drums, without losing the careful nuances I’d already fine-tuned), plugged in an electric guitar, and ran it through.

It fit. Perfectly. The rising melody, like a siren calling from a forgotten time; the cascading, echoed rhythm guitar burbling underneath like waves upon the ocean; the bass, thumping along like exhausted, yet somehow furiously driven oars hitting the water with a great, unified FLONGT.

[SHIFT]+[STORE]. Save Current? Y.

Must leave, go to bed, reboot, so as not to ruin it with overthinking things. Tomorrow, I will begin again.

Poweroff/Restart? 0.

Thomphsss, sleep now.

Downside (working title), sample 1