John and Jen

Good night and good luck, sweet Web children

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:09:20 -0400

It is with sadness that I bring this digital journey to end. There could be another farewell post everyday for the next decade, but I choose to end it here. This was something special and fleeting; it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Thank you to anyone who ever read a single word on here. John and Jen love you and thank you (well, maybe not Jen).

Please allow me to close with the wise words of semi-sonic: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” The passwords have changed and the emails are disabled. Its closing time at JohnAndJen.net.

P.S. If you or anyone you know would like to buy this URL- its an excellent one- the reality is you can still email me at johnandjenonthenet@gmail.com and get it for a one-time, non-refundable, super-discounted, clearence price. The discount password is closing time. Get it now, get it while the Google juice is hot. Don’t miss a great opportunity and email me NOW!!!!

Forget us not, Internet.

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:17:27 -0400

Forget us not, Internet.

samreich: Finally finished! As this blog passes away into the...

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:59:00 -0400

samreich:

Finally finished!

As this blog passes away into the cultural meme of yesteryear, we can only hope that this movie will be a blazing memorial to the cultural phenomenon that was Jakob and Julia. We have have come so far since that fateful winter of 2007. Sam Reich and Ricky Van Veen: carry the torch proudly; we appreciate and respect your work.

Big Event for Internet Week- Announced here first.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:50:34 -0400

Big Event for Internet Week- Announced here first.

MySpace!

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:23:32 -0400

MySpace!:

rickyv:

I hadn’t been on MySpace in a good six months or so, but was just doing some research for an upcoming CH project and got a taste. This doesn’t just hurt your eyes, it hurts your soul.

NSFW! NSFW! This needs to get labeled as the MOST NSFW FOR WORK LINK EVER!!! Jeez, Louise.

Jen has left the building

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:15:00 -0400

We were inspired by the insightful blogging of our colleague over at www.jamesgross.com. Indeed, we think it is time to give this site a make-over. We may now post more professional thoughts here as well. We like the URL and the story behind it though so the URL will stay. We guess you could say, we like to think of this URL- not URI (see T. Berners-Lee’s Weaving the Web)- as a media annuity.

dalasverdugo: It’s interesting to me that some people have reblogged my earlier post about Garfield...

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:56:00 -0400

dalasverdugo:

It’s interesting to me that some people have reblogged my earlier post about Garfield with a link to the tumblr page. I would have thought that admirers of Garfield’s dry, witty sarcasm would understand what my point was.

We took it as an opportunity to type like Amir from Jake and Amir. We would have thought that admirers of Amir’s jibberish would understand what dah nay we was saying. whateva.

Also on a more logistical note, our real motivation for posting it was so other people who read our Tumblr could enjoy it; maybe not everyone knows about Garfield Minus Garfield, dalas. In addition, Tumblr can be considered a running memory of all the things you find funny and interesting on the Web. We may one day forget about G minus G, but with Tumblr when we are scrolling through our old pages, we will happily find it there. DON’T CONDESCEND ME, MAN.

is dis werking? obvs probs a jk

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:57:00 -0400

ahhh tumblr broke garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com

dalasverdugo:

I wish there was a blog that posted Garfield comics, except I want them to digitally remove Garfield.

And I wish someone would have the courage to tell everyone about that blog.

CD (digital album?) Suggestion

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:06:00 -0500

can someone please make a CD recommendation who is following this blog? we would greatly appreciate it: a reblog CD suggestion. we guess really its not a CD anymore now is it? we guess then can some please make a digital album (?) suggestion that we can buy on iTunes.

www.waterscam.com

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:32:57 -0500

is there any update on this? we was interested. maybe we will do some research on our own. oh, the pain.

paulscheer: Kimmel Fucks Ben Affleck MCLOOOVIN

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:09:00 -0500

paulscheer:

Kimmel Fucks Ben Affleck

MCLOOOVIN

Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:40:58 -0500

Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking:

shawnblog:

OK, who wants to join in on a group contribution tumblr on this topic? I have the domain waterscam.com and will dedicate it for this purpose. If you are interested in contributing, reblog this post.

klksn:

focsa:

A bottle of water has the same impact on the environment as driving a car for a kilometre. Conservation groups and water providers have started a campaign against the £2 billion industry.

johnandjen.net is puzzled by bottled water and wants to explore the issue.

Movie Madness

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:53:47 -0500

dialogue is crispier than a chip.

jstn: Big L & Jay-Z radio freestyle from 1995. They’re...

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:25:00 -0500

jstn:

Big L & Jay-Z radio freestyle from 1995. They’re both amazing, but at the time no one had heard of Jay-Z (I love when the host gets impatient, “Big L, try that mic out… yeah, back to Big L…”) The beat is breezy.

jay is so nice- i dont think the DJ is getting impatient- Jay tossed it back to Big L. Sick old school flow. Who was the producer who first who heard of Jay Z- oh thats right, i think no one and that is why Roc-a-fella is here today. throw up the ROC.

If you use colors in web design, this website is for you. Very slick. Click random.

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:32:09 -0500

If you use colors in web design, this website is for you. Very slick. Click random.

jen, oh, are you not dating anyone now? If so, I am not surprised. —John.

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:12:39 -0500

jen, oh, are you not dating anyone now? If so, I am not surprised.

—John.

So Soon?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:10:28 -0500

John, are you dating Jakob now? If so, i’m happy for you.

Normative, LLC, part one

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:41:00 -0500

i have a semi lob on

jakoblodwick:

As of 6:29am, I am the proud owner of Normative.com, which I bought from a Russian squatter for $3,500 with the help of GoDaddy’s Domain Buy Service. This relieves a major clog in my brain: the fact that I should have owned {the name of my company}.com before starting a new business. I sort of jumped the gun, establishing Normative, LLC as a legal corporation and telling my friends that my new company was called Normative before acquiring the domain. How embarassing if I had been stuck with Normative.us.

It’s a bad idea to talk in detail about what you’re going to do, because sometimes most of the energy goes into the explanation. Or your plans change, but you half-stick to your original goals because you don’t want to be indecisive. However, at this point, I’m prepared to talk about the recent past of Normative, and give you some hints about what the future might look like.

A familiar theme in storytelling is when a place is destroyed, and the survivors dust themselves off and decide to rebuild. Sometimes it follows the apocalypse, or maybe the city was bombed-out in the war. The nightmare is over and you’re standing amidst pebbles of concrete, twists of steel, torn bodies deep-red, cloth mashed with flesh, a complete absence of leadership and, therefore, a hazy fear of the future.

The American record industry is in bad shape. It’s not that bad, yet. But I don’t want to wait around for it to crash. I don’t want to watch it get worse. Instead, I intend to capture the spirit of rebuilding. I want to pretend that the major labels were each hit with a hydrogen bomb, and now all these musicians are standing around, asking, “What do we do now?”

I want to answer that question.

The word normative refers to defining norms.

The company Normative works by asking, How should this be? and then pursuing that conclusion uncompromisingly.

It embodies my complete disinterest in the past except as a record of previous experiments. I am wholly concerned with the future: the slice of existence which can be shaped by my will; the blank canvas upon which I can paint my ideals; the one place where we might live amidst triumphant art and where existence might be tolerable.

It is only by disregarding the dominant paradigms that we can create the future that we ought to live in. I have no interest in tweaking the present system. I intend to invent something new, not “reinvent” the old.

Musical success in 2008 will require a deep familiarity with three important concepts: art, commerce, and technology. I believe this truth stands without exception. A label that doesn’t “get” the web will fail. A bedroom music producer who cringes at signing a contract will fail. A web entreprenuer who sees musicians as entertainers, not as walking gods, will fail.

The reason for the above premise is the theme of our present phase in history: Technology gives us the power to do almost anything. This means making a profitable album no longer requires hundreds of people. It requires two or three. Big record labels, and large corporations in general, are no longer needed to make money from art. This is not to say that Normative will buy magazine ads and mail press releases ourselves. That’s too much work. It means we will promote our albums in new ways that are hundreds of times more efficient; ways that record labels don’t understand, but are obvious to a seasoned web entrepreneur.

It also means that if you want to make money from music, you’re going to have to pull your weight, or you will be left behind. In the old model, a small number of artists created a living for hundreds of label employees. When those arists realize they can split the money with a couple of partners instead, will they? I’m betting the answer is yes, and every musician I talk to seems to agree with me.

I’m going to keep quiet about what I’ve accomplished so far, except to say that I’ve already signed one artist. I’m not going to make any policies about disclosing my progress, but if you’ve been following my life for the past few months, you’ve probably guessed that I’ll err on the side of revealing less, not more, than you’d like to know. My new thing is “here is a morsel from my life” instead of “here is what I ate for lunch”; I have learned my lesson about putting my whole life out there.

PS - a few weeks ago I linked to the Normatism teaser site. Normative is the company, Normatism is the philosophy behind it.

jen, your post is pathetic. —John.

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:37:15 -0500

jen, your post is pathetic.

—John.

break ups call for change

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:21:00 -0500

Hey John. Since we broke up and nobody reads us anymore, think it’s ok that i made our tumblr have girly-colors??

Still hate you,

Jen