Quote of the Day [3.05.12]
“Uh-oh. Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays.”
Random IniTech worker, Office Space
Monday Morning Musings [VI]
It's been awhile since the last post under this heading, but what better way to kick off a quiet week at the office. No one's around. Just me in the lab. No one to see that you're slacking off. Let's write a blog post about something!I figure that this one should be about the year that passed, 2010. While nothing spectacular happened, there are some highlights and lowlights to assess. Overall, another mediocre year in the life of BrowserMetrics.The best things to happen where the vacations with cousin Bob. It's a good time whenever he's around, but an ever better time when that time is spent in magical places: Disneyland and Hawaii. O, those were vacations to remember. Fun and sun. Surf, sand, and more. Lots of good things, good times, and good eats.Terrible things that happened this year. I never rode my bike. A good friend went back home. We had a couple of blizzards and I never made it to the slopes. My inaction on a lot of these issues was disturbing. Maybe I should get out more?Movies? Didn't watch too many. My Netflix queue is not getting serviced too much. Nothing is playing on TCM. I'm just waiting for something good.Books? Manga! Manga! Manga! From Uresawa to Uresawa: Pluto to 20th Century Boys. Lots of scifi in there: Saturn Apartments, Twin Spica, 7 Billion Needles. It's seems that I've run full circle to my reading habits although it's now manga. As for traditional books, not too much read.Anime! Too much torrenting, and not enough buying. K-ON! ended which makes me sad. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and Summer Wars anime movie were both released which makes me happy. Other anime to have watched: Oreimo, Amigami SS.There were lots of things I did this year. Just nothing spectacular. Have you done your year end retrospective as well?
Upgrade?
My mom's main computer is a G3 iBook circa 2005/2006 (Not truly sure), and she's looking for a new computing experience. What should she get? An iPad? A new Apple laptop? An iPhone? Switch to the cheaper Wintel 7 platform? I have no idea and this post is trying to solicit responses and advice from my blog friends, all two of them!Anyway, my brother has been suggesting an iPhone. He thinks she's ready for the touch interface. I think she is too, but her computing hardware is sorely lacking. You need a MacIntel machine to actually run the latest iTunes to manage the iPhone. On top of buying a new iPhone, she'll still have to upgrade her laptop. Is that the best solution?I suggested and iPad. I thought it wouldn't need iTunes to manage it, but the more I think about the problem, the more it resembles the iPhone issue. She will still need an laptop to manage content on the iPad directly. Is this necessary and can she get away with using the iPad as a main computer?I was wanting to get her an upgrade to a new MacBook. I don't want her to as having the computing power is negated by what she uses the computer for: web-surfing and email. It would be a complete waste unless she begins to migrate to the computing age.What say you? What's the best upgrade path for her?
Monday Morning Musings {part 00!5}
Boo!Scared you, right?No? But that's what I was thinking about this morning: spooks, frights, and scares. It's the last week 'til Halloween, and my thoughts always turn towards the scary around this time of the year. I love the feeling of being spooked. I think that it's most likely the slight shot of adrenaline you get when things creep you out. I am reminded of this whenever I ride my bike alone into the woods. It's slightly creepy on the backroads. You have to be aware of your surroundings when riding on the road. If you aren't careful, you may be hit by a car, so your senses are heightened. Look around. You look around and when you're in the woods it gets dark and creepy. Your cadence picks up and your elevated heart rate jumps slightly. Are those shadows in the woods just shadows? Are the dark, dank areas around you empty? Of the living? What's that noise? Is it just you, alone or can you feel the presence of an paranormal entity? I'm reminded of Ichabod Crane whenever I ride alone in the woods and get creeped out by my surroundings. Will the headless horseman come after me, throwing pumpkins, to lop off my head? The only thing I can think about is "Am I faster than his horse?" Sadly, the answer would be no.But the creeped out feelings occur lots. At home, what's that creaky noise coming from upstairs? Is there something wandering downstairs? Are there zombies wandering the field out back in the night as I pull into my garage? Did I leave the light on? Why's this door ajar? Just looking at creepy old houses excites the creeped out feelings. The old Rosewood institution in Owings Mills is creepy. It can substitute for many of the deranged hospitals you see in horror movies. Even its purpose lends itself to that milieu: it was a hospice for the serious developmentally disabled kids. Yes, that is somewhat disturbingly creepy.What do you think is creepy? And have you experienced anything real?
“Hey, Bill. What’s the word?” “Thunderbird, sir.” “There you go.”
Monday Morning Musings [part IV: A New Hope]I'm writing this instead of doing some work and it's only about a quarter after 9. I don't look forward to work at all. I can't wait until Friday.As I was taking a shower, I thought that I would like to listen to some ska on the ride in. Should I pull one of my CDs in the CD cubby in the living room or listen to the Trojan box set that's been in the Mini since I bought it 2 summers ago. Of course, once changed, I completely forgot about the CD. I still remembered that I wanted to listen to ska, so it was the Trojan box set once again.As I listened, I wondered what I like about ska. The rhythm? Yes to the skanking guitars on the upbeat. The energy to the songs? Yes, I needed to bop around in the seat. The horn section! That was it! Music needs more horns and saxophones and trombones. Bring those back.Now, is there a band today that has a horn section? And was the 80s the epitome of alternative musical instruments? Plenty of bands made use of the saxophone: INXS, Bruce Springsteen, (fill this in for me, please). Horn sections make the band more fun. See James Brown.Bring back the horns to music.
Monday Morning Musings [part the 3rd]
Let's take a look at the drive to work to celebrate the first day of school for many of the students in MD. Last week, if I had left my house at 7:30 AM, I would've been treated to a congestion free commute to work lasting 40 minutes for a 30 mile drive. Today, I get the school traffic that will complicate the morning and afternoon commutes. It will add another 10 to 15 minutes to the drive, and all of that within the first 10 miles of the drive.Why do I accept it? Because I chose where I live.Should I have moved closer to work? Should I find a new job closer to home?Having house closer to work would make my quality of life better. Less taxing on the cars. Less money spent on gas. Less aggravation caused by the traffic. More time to sleep. More time to eat breakfast. More money in the pocket.How is your daily commute, and would you change it for the better or worse?
Monday Morning Musings [part 2]
I started this, so might as well try to get this going.Originally, Monday Morning Musings was going to be about the music I listened to on the drive work, but, unfortunately, it should've been titled, "Monday Morning Music Musings." That was a slight oversight error on my part. I was so enthusiastic to write the first post of the series, that I just submitted it without a complete proofread. This slight error works out in my favor, because I can then write about whatever I thought about driving in to work even if it isn't music.The second in this series, though, will still be about music, because my mind was blank on the drive in.In iTunes, I've got a playlist folder that holds my "mix tapes." The title of the folder is "Burn List," and I usually include it in the synch routine to iPhone. Most of the playlists have been burned to a CD. Most are short so that I can burn them to CD audio and listen to them in my Jetta. The first time I had burned an MP3 disc, I learned that the head unit in the Jetta doesn't read MP3. I bought it around 2001 right around the cusp of MP3 player revolution. I had changed a tape player to this head unit, and looking back at it, the tape player would've allowed me to use the audio-in-to-tape dongle, the digital to analog converter thing you slipped into the tape deck.There are a few longer mixes reserved for MP3 burning, but those I have yet to do. I can just use the aux-in in the Mini for these playlists, so I don't need a CD version. Kind of defeats the purpose of that folder now that I about it.Anyway, the latest mix I made is for an MP3 CD. I like it plenty. I've been listening to it for days now while at work and had to listen to it coming into work today. Twenty-two songs. I listened to one in particular.I've been an anime/manga fan for the last few years. Manga is the majority of my reading. Anime, while not the majority of my television watching, makes up a lot of my video watching on a computer. That's a euphemism for downloading. With anime, I can get caught up with the opening and ending songs. They have become part of my music listening habits. I've been a big, big fan of the music coming out of the K-ON!! anime. They're rockers. Yet, this love for rocking anime tunes has to have come from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya's infamous "Live Alive" episode. If you know of anything about this anime or anime in general, you will know of this episode. It only had the most famous rocking anime song out for 2006, "God Knows" and "Lost My Music." I'm partial to "Lost My Music," and it's the one I have on my latest mix.Currently, iTunes has me having played it 140+ times, but that doesn't take into account listening to it on a burned CD or the counts from iPhone. I listen to it in its various covers on iTunes. You could look back on the archive of this blog and find instances of these cover versions. Even these I love. Then I've looked into trying to play this on my guitar. I've got the basic chord progression down, but there's no way I can play the lead because it's too fast for my novice hands.There's a lot of pieces to this Monday Morning (music) Musing from iTunes playlists to anime music to this song. I figure the point of this though is about this song. I love it lots ever since I've heard it back in '08. Do you have a song you're devoted to?
Monday Morning Musings [part 1]
Let's try out a blog writing exercise! On Mondays, I hope to write a little bit about music. Whether I've been listening to it, humming it, or playing it on my guitar, any and all thoughts had about music I'll try to write up on Monday morning. Why Monday? Because as I drive to work, the only thoughts I have besides trying to avoid thinking about the long day at work is to the music I am listening to on the drive. It only hit me this morning as I trudged off to work.The thought that brought along this blog writing exercise is that The Grateful Dead is the whitest band ever.Currently, in my Jetta, I've got The Dead's Live double album, Dead Set. From the album cover, it looks as if it's from a show in Madison Square Garden, NYC sometime in the 70s. I just wanted to hear some Dead tunes and this is the only CD I've got. As a live set, there is barely any bass to be heard, and there is barely any bass to this band. Not that it's missing low end, but they don't have any funk going on, or at least some of that deep booty bass funk that should rock the body. It's funny too because I think this version of The Dead was rocking the two drummer rhythm section.As evidence to their white, I'll point out that they do a rendition of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster" and while it's performed in a minor blues key, it's barely bluesy. I've heard The Doors cover and also the Stones' cover of the same song and there is some menace to their renditions, some growl. For The Dead, nada. It's pretty white. It's a white guy's cover of a black man's tune.Is The Grateful Dead really the whitest band ever?