MOG - Moof's Posts

Ouch.

Moof — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 14:09:49 GMT

I typically keep three macs on my LAN. My workstation, my laptop, and my previous workstation re-purposed as a file server. My file server died, recently. Unfortunately it was where I kept my music library and, because of various gaffes, I was only able to recover about a third of my music. Now, as I'm cataloguing what was lost, I'm finding that I left my favorite 40 CDs in my sports car when I sold it a few years ago and can't re-rip them. I still have the jewel-cases for those albums, but the actual disks were in a CD wallet. All three Soul Coughing albums, The The's "Dusk" and "Mind Bomb," Beastie Boys' "Hello Nasty," Oasis' "Morning Glory," - all gone. Hell, I even lost my "Tubular Bells" (the first one). What a pain this is going to be to fix.

Sadly, I watch too much TV, anymore.

Moof — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:03:42 GMT

I discovered the Flaming Lips, today, by watching a freakin' Dell commercial... Of course I'd heard of them, before, and I even remember hearing "She Don't Use Jelly" and sort of liking it at some point in the past, but when I heard this song on the commercial it immediately grabbed me and I knew I had to find out just exactly what the hell it was.

The sad part is, aside from "wand," and "jelly," "Turn It On" was the only other song that I could find by them that was even remotely engaging - and I don't dig "jelly" or "turn it on" all that much. "Wand," however, seems to keep getting better the more I play it. I saw some concert footage on YouTube and it looks like the lips put on a fantastic show.

I so love a good movie.

Moof — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:47:01 GMT

I just watched Thumbsucker - it's a fantastic movie and has an amazing score from Polyphonic Spree and Elliott Smith. I liked the soundtrack so much I bought the whole album from iTunes. I love a truly cinematic movie, and a good score is an absolute requirement. The movies are completely different in tone and content, but this movie felt a lot like Wes Anderson's Rushmore in it's sheer power.

I've tried, but I just don't.

Moof — Sun, 06 May 2007 06:25:55 GMT

It seems like just about everybody whose opinion I respect adores Tom Waits, but I just simply can't find anything he's done that I like. I always get the feeling that he's just some guy that screams into his pillow every night to roughen up his voice and then uses that voice to put a unique spin on otherwise mediocre poetry set to music (I saw an interview where he talked about the pillow-screaming thing). It's just not enough of a gimmick to make me enjoy it. I've been using Pandora to try to find some new music along the vein of The The's "Dusk", and he just keeps popping up and I have to keep clicking him down. I did, however, find an amazing song called "Hospital Beds" by a band called Cold War Kids and a fantastic cover of "Black Betty" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

I'm a crier

Moof — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 14:00:50 GMT

And this has been quite a week for crying. Crying for the families of the VT victims, crying for MarcoDisko, sitting here listening to Scheherezade and crying for my own past tragedies. But it's good to cry. So cleansing and cathartic.

Check out those cans...

Moof — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 12:15:59 GMT

A few months ago I posted about my agonizing choice for some new headphones to replace my old $20 Sonys. Well, I ended up getting some new $25 Sonys. Based on this guy's review, I ordered some MDR-XD200s and they're amazingly good for the price. More than good enough for my needs. And if my daughter decides to eat them, I won't cry for too long.

If you want to pick up some of these, I heartily endorse them. Be warned, though - these are big circumaural cans with all sorts of strange plastic and rubber gear on the headband and they come with a 10-foot cord. Not the most circumspect headphone's you'll ever own. They're beautiful-sounding on your iPod, but you might feel a bit conspicuous walking down the street wearing them... unless you're one of those pretentious audiophiles who deliberately wear studio cans with portable audio players just to rub people's noses in their aural inadequacies. In that case I'm sure you're just making up for all the times you were lifted off the ground by your underwear as a teenager.

Bleary eyes...

Moof — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:33:58 GMT

... and raw emotions but I'm back after a long-ish hiatus. I'm back for practical reasons. I was able to find some new music on my own while I was away, but I MOG is still the best way I've found to get new leads on great stuff. What was I doing while I was away? My normal routine plus way too much World of Warcraft. Ventrilo severely cut into my music listening, but I'm feeling the need to shift back to music. (In case this helps anybody, here are some examples of the new stuff I've found but haven't MOGed about: Flathead by The Fratellis, The Crane Wife 3 by The Decemberists, Brandenburg and Mount Wroclai by Beirut, and a Call Me When You're Sober by fellow Arkansans Evanescence.)

The damndest thing...

Moof — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 03:38:26 GMT

It's the weirdest thing...

I first heard of Gnarls Barkely months ago when they did that performance dressed up in Star Wars costumes. "Ok," I thought, "geeky is cool." But I listened to a few tracks, and wasn't blown away. So I just forgot about them and just politely nodded whenever somebody started talking excitedly about them to me.

Today, I randomly clicked on Gone Daddy Gone on YouTube because I'm a huge Violent Femmes fan, and I didn't know this wasn't a video with the Femmes in it.

It was ok - cute, even. Then I saw a link for _Crazy_ and I ended up watching that.

Cool. I kind of _liked_ that.

Then I saw a link to _Smiley Faces_ and as I was watching that, I totally got it. I've listened to the entire St. Elsewhere CD, now, and, _man_, this is good!

Happy Halloween

Moof — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:57:49 GMT

Trick or treat!

(link goes to a couple photos of my kids in their costumes)

Tangerine

Moof — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 05:22:53 GMT

I'm a sucker for gadgets, so here's one that popped up, today.

There's a nifty little Mac OS X app in beta testing, right now, called Tangerine - it analyzes your iTunes Library (looking at beast-per-minute and EQ levels of the tracks) and then generates playlists for you.

For example, say you want a playlist that starts out at a certain BPM and then either slows down and gets softer, or speeds up and gets louder... you get the idea. There's actually a ton of styles it can generate, but what I'm finding interesting right now is that you can use it to examine your _existing_ playlists... say something like a - oh, I don't know - _makeout playlist_... and it'll give you a graphical representation of the playlist that actually lets you see certain things about it that might not otherwise be obvious. It displays the album art of each track in order and alters the width of the songs art based on the song's duration - so if you have a loooong song in the middle of a bunch of short ones the aberration becomes immediately apparent. The height of the song's art gives you a graphical representation of the song's BPM (beats per minute) so you can get a feel for a fast song creeping it's way into your otherwise slow playlist.

I'm finding it useful for really _crafting_ playlists with interesting shifts in intensity. Or at least finding it nice to be able to see those shifts at a glance. Like I said, I'm a sucker for a gadget.

Oldfield

Moof — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 01:58:51 GMT

Tonight I was watching a documentary about the Apollo lunar missions and heard the audio of William Anders reading "let there be light..." and it made me think of Mike Oldfield's _The Songs Of Distant Earth_ and I realized I haven't heard this album in years. When I tried to pull it up in iTunes, I quickly found out why - I never ripped my CD to hard drive. Well, that was quickly fixed and now I'm listening to this masterpiece and introducing my son to it for the first time.

If you've never heard any Oldfield, you should. I've been a fan since I was 14 when I walked past Father Timothy's office at boarding school and some particularly strange riff from _Tubular Bells_ came drifting out¹. It caught my attention and I ended up sitting on his sofa for the rest of the album while he did paper work and other students drifted in and out of the dorm. I bought the CD a couple years later. In college I bought _The Songs Of Distant Earth_ and _Tubular Bells 2_. All amazing pieces of music.

¹ (I've still never seen the exorcist so I don't have that connotation to deal with when I listen to _Tubular Bells_. I read the book and enjoyed it, so I have no desire to see the movie.)

Missing Mog

Moof — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:39:15 GMT

With work and the upcoming election and the kids and everything I've had too many irons in the fire to post on MOG. But I did see something I liked while flipping past MTV2 on night, recently.

Miss you guys - I'll be back, soon.

Magnificent Stumble

Moof — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 05:16:45 GMT

Ever accidentally trip over something that turned out to be very valuable? I was in iTunes when I meant to be in Safari and hit "Command-P" while I had a playlist open for a mix CD I was burning.

And what should happen? Why I find iTunes' "print CD jacket" option - that I _never_ knew existed.

MOG strikes again!

Moof — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 03:14:39 GMT

Ok. I'm so grateful that this site is here, right now. Well, I've felt gratitude before, to be honest, because I've found quite a few new tunes here along with the great people in the community.

But right now I'm flying high on some amazing new music that I absolutely _never_ would have heard if it weren't for MOG and it's amazingly plugged-in people. A few weeks ago I saw three or four people post about Bonnie "Prince" Billy's amazing new album called "The Letting Go." Big whoop. A new album by some obscure artist - blink and it's over, that's how big a deal it is, right?

Except that these guys really _evangelized_ the music, and posted the YouTube music video for "Cursed Sleep" so I actually got to _hear_ some of this new, strange stuff. And it was unique, it was beautiful, it was freakin' _unclassifiable_. And it _was_ as amazing as they were saying. I was completely intrigued.

So I went ahead and "acquired" Cursed Sleep and Strange Form of Life and put them on my iPod. Now after a couple weeks of it weeding into my consciousness I was ready for more and ordered the CD.

Thank you guys. I love new music, but I _really_ love finding something so good that's also completely new and unknown to me. It's like getting an unexpected gift.

Site to make custom paper CD jewelcase

Moof — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 18:38:39 GMT

I saw this on digg.com and I knew that MOG'ers could benefit from this.

http://www.papercdcase.com/

You put in title and track info into the form and submit - the site then outputs a .PDF file for you to print and fold into a paper jewelcase. Brilliant.

Digital Vs. Analog

Moof — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 03:17:28 GMT

Now that the age-old flame war has been won by default, I have to say that I'm pure digital but I understand where the analog purists were coming from. I'm _high res_ digital. I don't like the fact that I had to rip most of my Library from CD's relatively low 44.1KHz sampling rate.

I really, really, really want to see future digitally purchased files encoded with high bit rates straight from the master mix. That's not too much to ask, I think.

Is it?

Unlikely Favorite

Moof — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:50:14 GMT

"Walking in Memphis" popped up on my iPod, today, and I sang along, like I always do. I tapped my feet like I always do. And I got weepy at the "_Ma'am I am, tonight_" part... like I always do.

I should _not_ like this song. It's just not my style or my taste. But I love it. I don't listen to it every day, but I enjoy the hell out of it when it comes on. I'm almost embarrassed by it, but then again, I feel kind of a fierce pride in the song that makes me want to defend it from other people who'd belittle it - like I probably should be doing if this song weren't from bizarro-land, or something.

What is _with_ this song?

Headphone finalists.

Moof — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 01:37:05 GMT

I've narrowed it down to either Sony MDR-V6 or Sony MDR-XD400 and I'm having a hell of a time deciding between them. Both can be obtained from various dealers for about US$65, so price isn't the final consideration. Both are supposed to have incredible sound quality. The V6s are venerable old workhorses in many studios, from what I can see, and the XD400s are big with the _listeners_ as opposed to the musicians/producers.

The XD400s have some sort of switch on them, evidently, to do the equivalent of resetting EQ for "normal," "movie," and "music" listening. A lot of people like that feature but in my experience gimmicks like that not only tend to add to the complexity of a product (thus increasing their potential for problems) but such gimmicks are often used to distract from other flaws in the model. Yet the XD400s still get solid review after solid review.

The V6 are reviewed and spoke of with almost reverential awe, though. And often by music professionals which carries a lot of weight with me.

I'm paralyzed with indecision.

Don't be afraid of your freedom...

Moof — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 23:43:19 GMT

This came on, today. I yelled at the screen, I railed, I nearly wept. It's one thing to use a song in a commercial in it's original state, but to butcher it like this...

Kate

Moof — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:20:57 GMT

Kate, I can't help it. Every time I see you post somewhere on MOG, the song "Kate" by Ben Folds Five pops right into my head. "_Dandelions, butterflies, I wanna be... KATE!_" It's getting kind of pavlovian.

I guess to open this up for general conversation, are there any people that you guys have developed a soundtrack for in your mind?

Equalizer

Moof — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 01:48:41 GMT

I'm in search of a good generic EQ preset, but I'm starting to wonder if that's just a completely futile quest. I like bass, but but not mushy bass. I also like clear mids and bright and crisp high-ends. But it's seeming like I'm having to bury the lows on my EQ and really jack up the highs to get things to sound right. How do you guys set your EQs? Currently, I'm liking this, but I know tomorrow I'll want to hear it differently - argh.

added: (I changed it, again, and this time I'm burying the mids a bit more.)

Oh, also, this is worth checking out if you (like me) obsess over your levels: LED Spectrum Analyser.

Live Forever

Moof — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 06:38:11 GMT

Wow - I'm watching a documentary about British pop in the 90s called "Live Forver." Some interesting histories from a lot of bands that I personally like: Stone Roses, Oasis, Massive Attack, Blur, etc. They interview Albarn and the Ghallagers and quite a few others.

A lot of how the end of the Thatcher 80s and beginning of the Blair 90s shaped the UK and gave rise to a cultural resurgence that ended up giving us so much great stuff. Pretty damn interesting.

Bonus question: can somebody identify the music playing under this interview? i have no clue.

Sound advice.

Moof — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 04:32:28 GMT

My beloved Sony MDR-CD60 headphones (the old-style, over the ear "cans" I'm wearing in my photos) are finally approaching the end. The padding on the cups is getting worn and I've already had to bend the plug back into shape after my daughter tried to pry off the front of my G5 with it.

I want advice from you fellow audiophiles on what model headphones would be a good replacement. I'd wanted to go high-end and get a set of Sennheiser HD-595, but my budget just doesn't go there, at least not anytime soon. The Sony's were bought during college and had their flaws, but they were solid for the price. I like a little bass, but really it needs to be good high and low. What nice headphones can you guys recommend with good clarity and resolution?

Challenge: no earbuds. And a long cord is a plus. The CD60s have like a seven foot cord and I like it like that.

Stealth Chucky

Moof — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:23:15 GMT

A few months ago, Chucky and I exchanged mix-lists (think digital-age mix-tape - I've seen a few others around here) as a way of saying hello since we were both new to MOG. I gave her a list, and said she liked it. What I forgot to mention to her was that I'm an old fogey and very resistant to change. I got her list, only found about 2/3 of the songs, liked a couple, and went back to listening to what I was listening to, before. What I _did_ do (and very glad I did) was tag her songs with 4-stars which in my library means they went into the general playlist of 90s-to-current which is my most played playlist.

I'll be damned if I didn't listen to her mix-list, today, and realize that I was singing along to most of them. Stuff I'd never heard before she suggested it. I'd heard them off-and-on over the last couple months and they crept their way into my psyche where I could finally learn to appreciate them.

So this is a big thank you to Chucky, The Stealth MOG'er.

New iTunes is out.

Moof — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:25:35 GMT

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

New stuff. Groovy.

Now THIS is a talent show...

Moof — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:04:02 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqyU6Sg3X5s

(I linked rather than embedded for for you FireFoxes, out there)

This is a remarkable video of some kids performing the theme from the game "Halo" at a high-school talent show. It's remarkable not only because you can see the joy that these kids are taking in honoring a game that they enjoy, or just because they're so talented and technically proficient, but because of the _joy_ you can see that they take in performing the _music_ and in delighting an audience with something unexpectedly beautiful.

I have to say, it made me a bit weepy and it made me want to jump up and applaud these kids. _That's_ a show I would have loved to see live.

Soothe the Savage

Moof — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:39:11 GMT

I was chatting with my GF via IM, earlier, and we had this exchange while talking about what music I'm going to bring up, this weekend. I had set up my mac to where she could stream my music library from her place. She'd just got home from a busy Sunday and was a bit frazzled and this was the first time in a long time she'd heard a lot of this stuff.

Her: Ahhhh! I miss The Cure Her: Close to Me was one of my favorite songs Me: agreed Her: my heart skipped a beat when I heard it Her: I am glowing Me: ;-) Her: this made my day Her: The Gourds Gin n' juice Her: put it on the list Me: didn't I give you that, already? Her: that CD is all worn out Me: ah - ok Her: She drives me crazy too Me: yeah, she doesn't know when to stop Her: lol Her: ha ha Her: Jane's Addiction Jane Says Me: I'll just bring the whole ablum - "Nothing's Shocking" is a classic CD Her: ok Her: yea for me Me: and Ritual De Lo Habitual Her: k Me: I'll take care of ya Her: your the man Me: I hope so Her: listening to this stuff makes me want to make out with you a lot Her: you can put that on your mog Me: I AM the man! Her: lol

Finding the old gems.

Moof — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 23:26:32 GMT

I posted before about how to find gems that might tend to get buried in a large music library and not get heard for long, long periods of time. Kate suggested Party Shuffle, if I recall, and now I've found more specific solution. It's iTunes specific, so bear with me if you're not down with the a-p-p-l-e...

Make a "New Smart Playlist" (under the File menu). The first criteria is "Last Played is not in the last 13 weeks." I decided 13 weeks because that's a quarter of a year. Should be enough time to make it feel new again. I added a second criteria because I'm a pack-rat and have all sorts of crappy album cuts in my music Library. My second criteria is "My Rating is greater than (3 stars)." Which means it'll only find four star and higher songs. Lastly, check the box next to "Live Updating" at the bottom. Click "OK," and you're done. You can rename the playlist by double clicking it's name and call it "long lost," or something.

If you haven't played with the smart playlists, before, you'll find them _extremely_ useful. I have smart playlists to pick specific genres, to pick my current favorites (five star), and I have one that gives me a solid 45 minutes of music I haven't heard in at least a week (this is my exercise playlist). So handy.

Think of the children!

Moof — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 21:54:01 GMT

I'm getting to live this, and I'm loving it. My son, through me, is being exposed to music for music's sake and some of the best of it (by my reckoning). I'm not holding back, either. I've explained to him that there's no such thing as "bad" words, but there are words that make some people uncomfortable so he's very conscientious about not using them, even though he knows that it won't get him in trouble at home. Hell, one of his favorites is _Song for Shelter_ by Fatboy Slim, which has both the S-bomb and the F-bomb and is essentially about dropping Ecstasy and raving. Another is "Youpi" by Kid Loco - that's not even in English.

So lyrics aren't an issue, though at seven, he's still pretty young to understand a fair amount of the lyrical _content_. But maybe that's all to the good. He appreciates music solely on the aural pleasure he receives from it. When he's older he can revisit and rediscover based on the poetry they contain. And since I'm an eclectic listener, he's getting exposed to almost all genres and styles and I'm trying not to teach him my own musical prejudices. I'm doing this with more than just music, natually. I want to let him swim in unfiltered art and information and allow him to soak in or reject what he will. It's what I wished I had as a child instead of strict censorship and confusing (often hypocritical) messages. Music, though, is key. He's not quite advanced enough for literature, and many of the best movies also have graphic images I think he should wait a few years to see, but music lay completely within his reach. All of us here know the power that music has, and I'm hoping it'll be a fundamental part of his life as he grows.

Is anybody else as excited as I am about raising the next generation of MOGers and Music Lovers?

I found it!

Moof — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 17:46:24 GMT

While researching mood music (see below), I came across this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverence_%28EP%29

Back in the day we loved "Reverence" and spun this disc maybe thousands of times at parties, especially the Alien Jourgensen remix. I remembered what the cover looked like, but forgot what it was called or even that it was an EP of remixes of just this song. This is the first time I've found any mention of this particular disc on the web. I desperately need a copy of this CD.

Old is new, again.

Moof — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 07:02:51 GMT

I know I've not mentioned it here, but I'm in a relationship. I'm actually seeing somebody who was a high-school sweetheart of mine. Time and distance separated us, and now that we're older, we've found our way back into each other's lives, blah blah blah. We live about four hours apart so most of our relationship is on the phone, but next weekend I'm throwing the kids in the car and we're heading up to her place.

The music tie in? To be blunt, I thought it'd be nice to have some make-out music. We're both single parents, but I work from home so I'm typically a lot less frazzled than she is. That usually leaves me to be the creative one when it comes to planning something special once the kids are asleep. (She has a MOG membership, though she's not very active with it - I wonder what she'll say when she sees this?)

This is the girl who introduced me to both to _The Cranberries_ and _The The_. Both are huge milestones in my personal musical history. Her musical tastes are _very_ similar to my own but I've remained a lot more plugged in over time so I'm introducing _her_ to a lot more stuff, this time around. Naturally there are some songs from our mutual past that are going into the playlist, but I'd like to find something new for her, too. So I'd like some suggestions from you guys.

(Challenges: nothing corny like Barry White, and it has to sound good at low volume)

Tra-la la-la-la

Moof — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:23:33 GMT

I was setting up a timer to record Superman on Boomerang for my boy and while I had it on that channel, the Smurfs were on. Talk about a blast from the past. Though it's not exactly how I remember it from 25 years ago. Actually, it was pretty terrible. What's up with Vanity Smurf? He should just come out, already. Gargamel just seems like he needs to be on lithium or maybe a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. And Smurfette - she's Eve: Mother and Lover to the whole Smurf Village. All-in-all I'm glad my kids grew up with Blue's Clues. At least they have stuff like Bluestock .

Easy stream.

Moof — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:33:22 GMT

http://www.musicast.org/

I saw this, today. This looks like a nice mac solution, and I know there are PC solutions out there. How long until we're actually streaming the music as well as talking about it?

A Quick One

Moof — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 06:44:45 GMT

Anti-Amy got me thinking about music in film and oh, is that a rich, deep vein to mine. I loved Donnie Darko (I have the DVD which is a good indicator of my opinion of a film), but my favorite movie of all favorite movies is Rushmore - in a great movie full of great music one of the greats is this little montage. A masterful use of music in a motion picture.

I drink you up

Moof — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 23:28:15 GMT

I don't have a lot of time so I'm going to toss this out there for those of you who need it. If you don't know _Soul Coughing,_ you should. Fantastic jazz-influenced alt-pop band from the 90s.

1) First step, buy all three of their CDs. "Ruby Vroom," "Irresistible Bliss," and "El Oso." You can skip El Oso, if you like, though it has its moments. (Alternatively, download these songs and buy them later.)

2) Second step, set up a quick playlist of these songs:

Sugar Free Jazz True Dreams of Wichita Screenwriter's Blues Janine

Super Bon Bon Soft Serve Lazybones Sleepless

Rolling Circles Fully Retractable The Incumbent

These are the twelve basic songs you need to hear to get the feel for the band. Possibly this is their most accessible stuff, but it's not by any means all of their good stuff. M. Doughty went on to do other things, but nothing of this quality. What's the key to their genius? Is it the upright bass? Perhaps we'll never know.

Enjoy!

In need.

Moof — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 06:30:48 GMT

Shazbot. I'm already burnt out on my current 5-star play list. I'm needing new blood. Or do I?

The problem with having a digital library and the iPod is that I have four thousand songs in there and the general playlist is so long and dense that I literally won't hear some songs for years even though they're literally at my fingertips 24/7. Instead of always listening to the non-repeat-pure-random general playlist I'm picking out a dozen particular songs and putting them aside and listening to the shorter playlist over and over again until I'm burnt out and wanting something new. I haven't heard Led Zeppelin's "fool in the rain" for months though I love that song to pieces. Same thing with Lynard Skynard's "Simple Man." Chucky's post about Jane's Addiction got me to thinking because "Classic Girl," is one of those songs, too. These songs go _way_ back with me. I've literally loved them for years and years and some of the more recent stuff I've listened probably won't have the same longevity. But how can I rediscover that lost gem that's slipped my mind when it might literally be months before it popped up on my play list _IF_ I could go that long without resetting my iPod and losing my place?

Most of you guys have _much_ larger libraries than I do - how do you keep from losing some of your classic tracks?

Gah! Even as I'm writing this I think of the fact that I love just about the whole freaking "The The" discography - I really, really want to hear _Dogs of Lust_, now. It's been too long. Maybe it's just time to go on a musical odyssey through my library if I can find a way to make sure I keep track of where I'm at in the list.

I spam you with all my heart.

Moof — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:34:59 GMT

_Dear One_

_How are you today, I hope all is well. My name is Lilian, I am very tall good looking perfect body figure and sexy girl kind , sincere and trusted, God fearing.and .I saw your profile and was delighted to contact you, I hope you will be the true loving, honest and caring man that I have been looking four, And I have something special to tell you about me, So please contact me directly through my private email address at lizyormie407 at yahoo.com so that I can also send my picture directly to you._ _my private email is lizyormie407 at yahoo.com Remeber that love has, no colour barrier,no socio-economic barrier,religious,nationality or distance barrier, but love matters most. I will never stop loving you regards Big kissss for you I will be waiting for your response Love Lilian_

Sadly, no utopia lasts forever. I just got my first spam in my MOG mailbox. Look for a "mark as spam" button to start appearing on the email message page, soon. Sadly, it's always a holding action against these guys, never outright victory.

The "god fearing" part made me chuckle, though - personally I'm a non-religious Christian (i.e., atheist raised in a Christian home), but I don't want to think that being religious makes somebody more gullible to something like this. Also, I'm _not_ very tall though I've dated tall women, before. It can be amusing, at intimate times, to feel so Lilliputian, but it's not ideal, IMHO.

Found it!

Moof — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 04:41:43 GMT

Sorry for the lack of participation, lately - my daughter took a wild swing into the nocturnal life and basically stopped sleeping nights a couple of weeks, ago. I got her back into a daytime schedule, finally, but now I'm finding myself with a completely whacked out sleeping schedule where I'm basically taking two hour naps every 8 hours and it's got me on the ropes, productivity-wise. I've never felt so exhausted for so long.

Anyway, something happened today that's only happened to me a couple times in my entire life. I finally found a track that I'd been trying to find for years. (You have to remember that I'm not the most well-connected person when it comes to friends that know music - the one good musical friend I had moved to Australia about a decade ago and left me in the cold - MOG has been a huge help).

The first time I remember this happening was when I was flipping through the channels one night as a teenager and found a TV show about "strange" commercials. One of the commercials they ended up showing was a firestone tire commercial that had what I thought at the time was the most amazing music I'd ever heard. It didn't sound like something that would be created just for a commercial so I vowed I'd figure out the artist and add it to my music library. Well, of course, this was pre-internet so I didn't really have the resources to find out what it was and forgot about it for years until one night I was working late at work when I should have been home with my wife and kids and out of the blue I remembered that commercial. By then I'd heard of the Velvet Underground and had some of their music as well as some other Lou Reed stuff, and without thinking about his song for years I immediately realized it was a Lou Reed song. A little searching via Google and I discovered it was _Venus in Furs_. Score one for me.

Back in 98 I was going to school working for a BA in Broadcast Production and working as a DJ at the college's radio station. I got into a conversation one day with the Program Director (another student) and we were talking about the new Beastie Boys album, _Hello Nasty_. He was shocked and amazed by this album and how good it was because all he's heard before it was the old-school _License to Ill_ (much of which they would later disavow as a youthful indiscretion). And I mentioned another recent Beasties track I'd heard somewhere (still can't remember where, to this day) that I definitely took as a precursor to _Hello Nasty_ and I loved it and he should definitely hear it... but - and here's the rub - I didn't know the track or album name or any of the lyrics. By this time I'd been on the 'net a couple years and I tried to look it up but I just didn't have enough to go on. Time passed and I forgot all about it.

Today, I was channel surfing and I landed on VH1 and a show called "I love the 90's, Part Deux." I watched for a bit and all of a sudden Ben Stein is popping up on the screen with this mystery Beastie song playing under him as he's praising the rap songs of 1996. He dutifully informs me that the song I'd been searching 8 years for is _Sure Shot_ from "Ill Comminication." Yay!

Oops.

Moof — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:44:36 GMT

I think I've mentioned before that I'm on my second iPod. The first one I had was a third-generation 30GB which lasted 2 and 1/2 years - I was lost when it died. I replaced it with a fourth-generation 40GB which was problematic at first, but has since settled down. Well, recently I found this article and after trying it out on my old 3G I find myself in possession of two perfectly working iPods. I've been listening to my 3G all night, now, and it's still rocking along. It actually sounds better than my 4G, though I have no clue why that would be. What the hell am I going to do with two iPods? I guess I might see if my brother wants my 3G.

I'm still stunned that the fix was so simple. I'm a mac-head and a techie and I tried _everything_ - resetting, reformatting, degaussing (yes, I know...) - and usually it'd have an HD failure during or right after all those steps. It's been sitting dead on a shelf for most of a year, now, and after whapping it on a paperback book a few times to reset the HD connection, it's working like a dream. Goddamn. Ifni is a perverse goddess.

Furth fortune and fill the fetters

Moof — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:49:15 GMT

I'm Scottish - scots? Well, at least my surname is. My genealogy is a bit more diverse than that. One paternal great-grandmother rode a boat to America from Norway as an employee of a cruise line, and a maternal great-grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee. My dad's surname is scots in origin, and his father passed on a swatch of cloth with our family tartan, but my grandpa also spoke fluent German because his mother was from that country. My mother's maiden name is so English that we both still love tea and imperialism. Well, we like tea, at least, but we drink it southern-style because that's where she settled to raise me.

But today I'm grasping at my scottish roots because I happened to put on an old playlist when I was driving today and got a hold on some Beta Band. Like many others, I'm sure, I first heard Beta Band while watching _High Fidelity_ and was intrigued enough to end up buying the "Three EPs" which is simply a work of genius. And these guys are renowned for their live shows. Makes me wish I would ever get the chance to see them live because what they lay down in the studio is amazingly brilliant. I also have "Hot Shots II," and will be buying "Heroes to Zeros" as soon as I can. I have faith in my Scottish brothers.

vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock

Moof — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:35:40 GMT

Ugh - I hate when music that I like gets pigeon-holed. I just saw a commercial for most of the singles I liked from FM radio between 1994 and 2004. It said I should call now to get these "ginormous hits." Which I never knew they were. I also wasn't aware they were the biggest alternative-rock-power-ballads of all time. But I do remember the albums that these songs came from had other good cuts so instead of buying some compilation who's marketing belittles and cheesifies the very songs it's selling, go get the CDs at a good used CD shop and do a little exploration beyond the one or two tracks these bands got into heavy FM rotation. I went to the website and here are the "ginormous hits":

Tori Amos?

White night

Moof — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:14:16 GMT

I'm a bit of an insomniac, and what I do to keep myself productive is to rigidly wake myself up at 5am, every day. That way I can start my day consistently and get things started. Except that I can't make myself go to bed at a specified time - I can't stand to lay in bed when I'm not sleepy. And that's why I typically get 4-5 hours of sleep a night. I'm tired every night, but I don't get sleepy typically until midnight or 1am. Except, occasionally, my sleep-time creeps later and later - no matter what I do - until I'm getting just 2-3 hours of sleep. When this happens I have to have a white night - like tonight.

From what I've always understood the phrase to mean, "White Night" means any night where you're just not sleepy and stay up far later than you should. But for me it's a night where I deliberately go without sleep so I'll be tired enough the next night to go to bed at a decent time.

I got to 3am, tonight, and rather than try to squeeze two hours of sleep in, I just went ahead and stayed up and did laundry and watched movies. Now, it's 6am, and I'm going to get the kids up and get them into the tub and get them started on their day. To be honest, I probably feel more fresh and alert right now than if I'd tried to get just two hours of sleep and had to wake up, anyway. By tonight, I probably won't be able to keep my eyes open after 10pm. Which might be a problem if my daughter decides she doesn't want to go to sleep, but that's the main reason I get the kids up at 6am to put them in the tub - it wakes them up early and that usually means they're pretty tired by the time 9- or 10-pm rolls around.

But Jesus Christ I'm going to be exhausted, today. Hopefully I'll get to sleep early enough, and get enough sleep tonight to make it worth it.

Grown' a Beard

Moof — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 05:37:56 GMT

I got my "Growin' a Beard" DVD and watched the documentary and all the featurettes and special features and it's a neat little package. It's technically a 2 disc set, but the second disc is actually an Audio CD with the Gourds' soundtrack. Which is really good. I'm going to have to pick up some more CDs by these guys - and remember I'm not much of a Bluegrass fan. I think the key for me might be that the bluegrass musicians in question probably should be born after 1970 (if you'll recall, this is the bluegrass band that did the brilliant cover of Snoop Dogg's _Gin 'N Juice_ ).

80s

Moof — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 08:31:14 GMT

I have gone on the hugest 80s kick, recently. I've always identified myself with the 80s, even though I was really a 90s teen and the highest I got was junior high during the 80s. I was exposed, though, and young enough that what I _was_ exposed to has indelibly marked me. I still have Dexy's Midnight Runners, Fine Young Cannibals, The Clash and New Order with 5-star songs in my library. (good lord, I just realized how UK all those bands are). LadyC mentioned John Hughes films in an earlier post, and I was thinking to myself about how those films were such a big part of my adolescence, when it occured to me that I _wasn't_ an adolescent when I saw those movies - I was in grammar school. I'm not John Hughes I'm Phil Joanou.

Bam-a-Lam

Moof — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:49:45 GMT

I'm not sure what to make of "Black Betty," by Ram Jam off the "Golden Classics" album. I first heard it on a YouTube clip and was immediately caught by it's relentlessly driving sound. I "acquired" the whole song and the first time through listening to it, I thought the file was corrupted or truncated at about the 50 second mark, but after trying a few different versions of the file realized it was just some damn rough editing. Intentionally, I'll have to assume. The more I listened to it, the more it sounded like the vocals might actually have been sampled from another song or at least another version of the song. The song is good, but has a lot of southern rock guitar solos that are almost out of place and are certainly edited in sort of funny.

I found another version of the song by a band called "Spiderbait" (off the "Tonight Alright" album) which is just as rocking, just as great but is actually a whole song with no harsh edits and/or sampling. But it doesn't have those beautiful skynard-ish vocals. Anyway, I'd love to know the history of this song. The lyrics sound like they could be an old, old blues song. It would probably feel perfectly fine to have Leadbelly singing them.

_Oh Black Betty, Bam-a-Lam Oh Black Betty, Bam-a-Lam Black Betty had a child, Bam-a-Lam The damn thing gone wild, Bam-a-Lam She said "it weren't not a mine," Bam-a-Lam The damn thing gone blind Bam-a-Lam_

Reality-based

Moof — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:10:36 GMT

This isn't music related, but it still effected me pretty strongly. I might be biased because I haven't had any TV for about two years. We just weren't watching it so I didn't see any reason to spend money on cable. So basically the only news clips I've seen since then have been the craziest stuff from Fox News or MSNBC that I get from my liberal news sites. Well anyway, today I was watching BBC News for the first time in a couple years and I actually got weepy to realize that there is still some sanity in the world and places where the news is still just the news and not the Hard Sell on somebody's agenda.

Anticipation?

Moof — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:20:28 GMT

I've not been able to keep my eyes open, recently. I'll drift off in my chair at my desk, or even just get up and go back to my room and lie down to doze while the kids are playing. I've completely lost interest in World of Warcraft which has been my main hobby since Nov. 2004 when it debuted - so much so that I'm worried that my guild might have dropped me since I've been gone for almost two weeks, now, without bothering to drop them a line. I feel like I'm completely disengaged from everything, right now. I still do my daily routine with the kids and take time to let them know they're loved and to play with them, and I've had some work recently and had no trouble taking a few hours the other evening to belt it out, but I really feel like I'm just marking time waiting for something to happen - waiting for some other shoe to drop and to begin a new phase. I think the last time I felt like this was after I'd wrapped up all my affairs in my hometown just prior to moving away to college. This is that same sort of unfocused, idle, anticipatory feeling. Which is worrying because I don't really want a big change in my life, right now. And to be honest, the only things upcoming on my calendar are getting digital satellite TV installed Wednesday and Apple's upcoming World Developer's Conference - neither of which should spark such change that I should be giving into ennui about my current life. The whole thing's got me puzzled and I hope I break out of it, soon.

Late night

Moof — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 06:34:23 GMT

MOG is busy, right now, it seems - people must be getting back from their night out on their various towns. I feel like the guy who's been in the dorm studying on a Friday night while everybody else is out at the pubs. The kids are in bed and I'm enjoying the quiet. I'm just checking posts and listening to JSBE (another post made me think about some tracks that I hadn't heard in awhile). My eyelids are getting heavy, so I'd better sleep, soon. The kids get up at 6am no matter what time I finally drift off.

Heh - I just thought about how I used to go to bed with a walkman in my late-teens / early-twenties. It was nice to fall asleep to music. Now, though, I have to be able to hear the kids and wake up if I'm needed. It's a pity - with my iPod, I wouldn't be limited to just one mix-tape while I slept.

With so much drama...

Moof — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:36:52 GMT

Ok, I'm not much of a bluegrass or hip hop fan, but this song has remained one of my favorites for a couple years, now. The Gourds' Gin & Juice is a bluegrass cover of the Snoop-dogg song - which you'd think would make it a horrible mess - but for some inexplicable reason is completely infectious and beautiful. I simply can't get tired of this song - it's been in my 5-star list since I first heard it. I just heard about The Gourds new album on an NPR clip - I'm actually tempted. Plus, these guys simply can't be paid enough for "Gin & Juice."

The whole thing?

Moof — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:19:22 GMT

Can anybody explain why "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah," is so damn familiar? First track I heard by them (skin of my yellow country teeth) sounded so different, so unique, yet also so familiar all at the same time. It was fantastic, and I'd never heard it before but I almost felt like I'd heard it before. I ended up seriously liking _every_ track on the album, which is pretty rare with me. Zakk Wylde "Book of Shadows," and The White Stripes "Get Behind Me Satan," are the only other two albums I can think of that were like that for me (not counting concept albums). Even my absolute favorite bands like Jane's Addiction, Beta Band and The The always have at least a couple album cuts I don't care for, but CYHSY just rocked from start to finish - and I could almost swear I'd heard it before...

Busy day.

Moof — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:23:52 GMT

Not a lot to say, today. Wrapping up after the holiday - the girl is back in school and the boy and I are heading out to run errands. Been too busy for music, sadly. I have a mix-list (like a mix-tape) I'm supposed to be checking out, but I keep getting caught up in other stuff and not having the time or opportunity to listen to it. Things will settle soon, I bet. I hope.

Historical Music

Moof — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:35:49 GMT

This is an episode from This American Life where Sarah Vowell talks about the history of one of our more patriotic songs. (streaming MP3, her segment on the Battle Hymn of the Republic is the second act starting about 20 minutes in.) It's an interesting story about the evolution of the song - parts will make you laugh, parts will make you cry and the whole thing is pretty moving which is exactly what I love about This American Life.

Happy Fourth!

Drive

Moof — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 11:11:13 GMT

There are many ways music really adds something to the way we experience our lives, but there's something especially great about music while driving.

Cover Flow

Moof — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 15:10:23 GMT

For you mac-users, out there, there's a rather cool little program called CoverFlow. Actually, it's a bit beyond cool. It browses your iTunes library and let's you virtually flip through your album covers just like back in the day. When you find an album you want to hear, just double-click the cover in CoverFlow, and it'll automatically make a temporary playlist in iTunes with all the tracks from that album, in order - and start playing track one. I love it. Because of this little application, I took the time to get the album art for just about everything in my digital music library. It's Tiger (10.4) or later. My screen capture software (snapz) isn't recording my system audio, or you'd be able to hear me start up "Doolitle" and "White Blood Cells," in the video.

Come on...

Moof — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 14:01:38 GMT

I can't get over how brilliant Sufjan Stevens' Come On Feel The Illinoise album is. I was telling a new MOG friend about it, last night, and so I'm having to listen to it all over again. I'm a "jukebox" type of guy. I like a play list of randomized songs, just one per artist, just a few minutes long, yet here I am in love with a playlist of 22 songs all by one guy, and played in a particular order for over an hour. It's beautiful and amazing. I don't even know if I can adequately describe it. All I can say is that - according to what I've read - it has a high school band helping him fill out the arrangements, and it's the second in a 50-state concept-album rampage he's supposed to be embarking upon. Just go out and buy the CD and rip the whole thing to a single playlist. A few tracks can stand alone¹, but it really is best as one big piece.

I do this thing where I go onto googlemaps and plan out a back-road adventure. I pop the kids into the Jeep, and we just explore little-used and remote roads in the area. The local geography can be quite beautiful. I think we'll have another adventure, today, set to the "Illinoise," album.

¹ (3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15 & 19)

Best undiscovered.

Moof — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:44:48 GMT

I found a website that shows 80s music videos and I'm seeing most of these for the first time. Where I grew up, we had no MTV (Still don't, actually - you have to get satellite TV service to get it because the local cable company still won't carry it). Some of these videos are just terrible. Probably the best example is In a Big Country - which I still think is a brilliant song, but that video... ugh. Stuart Adamson is dead, now, and there's no chance of ever reclaiming that. Makes me mad at whoever talked the band into doing that video instead of doing something more appropriate for the song.

And what the _hell_ is this?! I saw the link for The Church's "Under the Milky Way," and thought, "hell yeah!" But what I saw confused and frightened me.

The good I found were Stone Roses' "Fools Gold," XTC's "Dear God," and The The's "Gravitate to me," but all of those bands were 90s bands who happened to already making 90s music in the 80s. I also found some Butthole Surfers and Ministry. So early and so different than what I've heard by them.

It's amazing the diversity and evolution of music between '80 and '89. I went from six to sixteen in that timeframe and the music left a deep mark on me.

iPod

Moof — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:41:46 GMT

I actually put off buying an iPod for a few years before I gave in. What I really wanted was a Tivo. I understood that both were supposedly life-altering devices if you grasped their significance, but I really wanted to be able to watch the 1% of TV I actually liked without having to alter my schedule or suffer through commercials - I thought that was way more interesting than having my CD collection in one device. Little did I understand... Either way, I was holding off on both devices until the technologies matured and became more cost-effective.

Before my wife died, I exercised for an hour a day. Either walking or riding my bike (this was in the western Chicago suburbs where it's nice and flat - I grew up in the ozark hills where you had to start out at pro-level if you wanted to ride a bike). I hate to exercise, but I love radio (as a medium - I've worked in radio) and, living in the 'burbs, I would just take a little walkman with me. It was a tape deck, but really all I needed was the FM tuner. I'd listen to WBEZ (the NPR station) and I was one happy guy. Well, my wife died, and I not only fell apart emotionally, but I also fell apart physically. I started smoking the day she died - just had the urge to smoke after been quit for five years - and I stopped exercising. And, since I can't cook, I started eating a lot of fast food and take-out. You can see where this is leading. As a matter of fact, I'll put a photo of my wife and I at the end of the post just to illustrate the point. Well, I mourned her for about two years, and when I started to finally feel like myself, again, I realized I was going to have to finally bite the bullet and start exercising, again. Except there's no radio to speak of here in the ozarks. I was floored when I realized that I couldn't pick up an NPR station in my hometown.

So I bought an iPod. I still haven't gotten the exercise thing worked out, yet, but that iPod changed my life. When I'm in the mood for a particular song, it's there. And I don't have to listen to 12 album cuts to get to the gem. I buy books from audible.com and iTunes Music Store (iTMS) and those are GREAT for doing laundry or driving long-distances. I use AudioHijack Pro to record my favorite Air America shows to .mp3 format so I can listen to them as I'm cleaning, working, or driving (through the car stereo, of course). Basically, my iPod has become my constant companion. So much so, that when my original third-generation 30GB iPod hard drive finally died after two and a half years of service, I immediately ordered a replacement. I got a refurbished fourth generation 40GB because I use an iPod for audio, not video - which has been a rather... interesting choice because this is the one iPod model that had high failure rates (I've sent it back to be replaced three times, but seem to have finally gotten a good one, now). Now, I can't imagine not having this thing always within reach.

Flat on my back in a lonely sprawl...

Moof — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:02:44 GMT

I find myself trying to avoid the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. I have a long, long history with the Chili Peppers. I got my first CD player for Christmas 1992 when I was a senior in high-school, and I was old enough at that point that my father stopped trying to censor my music library (christian fundamentalist). I think "Suck My Kiss" was big at that time, but I actually kind of hated that song. I'd heard "Under the Bridge, though," and thought it was about the best thing ever. So I promptly went to Wal-Mart (rural south - no record stores in my area) and bought the only RHCP disc they had - "What Hits." That disc had "Taste the Pain," which to me was an entirely new sound - which I loved. I ended up partying a lot for the rest of my senior year and, as it turns out, much of those times were experienced while the "Blood Sugar Sex Magic" album played end to end, over and over. We also had "Boss Drum" by the Shamen and a CD of various remixes of "Reverence" by bands other than Jesus and Mary Chain (the best being the Al Jourgensen mix), and various music contemporary to that time, but "Blood Sugar Sex Magic," was definitely the one we listened to the most as we drank and smoked up. And it is an excellent party album. You start out pumped up over "Power of Equality," and ride the roller coaster through "Breaking the Girl," "Apache Rose," "Sir Psycho Sexy," and by the time "They're Red Hot" came on, the party was well under way and we were drunk enough to listen to it all, again. As time went by, I followed news about the band, somewhat, and I mourned when Frusciante left. Navarro was a genius in Jane's, but he just wasn't a Chili Pepper. I never bought "One Hot Minute." I did buy Californication when it came out because the lineup had corrected itself, and liked it, but never really accepted the idea that it was somehow superior to BSSM. And there it stopped, pretty much. I haven't listened to anything after Californication because my tastes (ever-changing though they are) have veered off into deeper realms. I still love my RCHP, and "My Lovely Man" is still the anthem for a life-long friend and I when we get in touch, but it's nostalgia music for me, now, and I somehow want to keep it encapsulated in those times.

Multi-task

Moof — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:22:09 GMT

I'm often surprised at how I can multi-task, now. Actually, I'm surprised at how I can't stand not multi-tasking, now. If I'm playing WoW, I'm also listening to music or a radio show or audiobook in iTunes while I'm doing it. If I'm doing work, I'm doing that or watching a DVD with the commentary on in a little corner of my desktop. When I exercise¹, I have to have my iPod. Have to. Without exception. It's not that I have an attention deficit. I can stay on task, it's just that the task is rarely enough. It's more like maintaining a comfortable level of stimulation. I'm almost afraid of the idea of walking in silence for an hour. It's not the idea of silence or being alone with my own thoughts, but rather a feeling that I'm not _engaged_, somehow. Like my mind is idle, it's potential wasted. That sounds amazingly arrogant, but I hate that feeling. It's one of the main reasons I stopped smoking pot when I was a teenager. It was too much like deliberately putting a brake on the machine of my intellect. _Whoooo_, that sounds pompous. My apologies. I can't be unique, though. I wonder how other people deal with this? Many probably do the exact same things, I bet.

¹ (An issue I'm currently working on - I used to exercise daily before my wife died, but I sort of let things fall apart when she passed and now I'm really out of shape and finding it extraordinarily hard to get back on the wagon. This actually relates to how I finally gave in and bought an iPod in the first place. I'll explain that, sometime.)

That's enough, thanks.

Moof — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:45:52 GMT

That American Apparel ad is seriously getting on my nerves. You know the one. The vaguely pedophiliac one of the girl taking a bath. If it's an apparel ad, why isn't she wearing a goddamn stitch? When I was a teenager I was sexually attracted to teenagers, but now I just want to hand this girl a towel and tell her to hurry because other people need the bathroom. Once, my wife and I were in the Field Museum in Chicago, and we saw a couple holding hands where the guy looked in his mid-30s, and the girl looked - I swear - like she was sixteen. Creeped us both out. I grew up in the rural south, so I wasn't too shocked, but even here it's still rare-ish if more accepted. I'd like to think that's not so common that an ad agency would feel comfortable putting this ad on a site that (as far as I've seen) is filled with people mostly 10 to 25 years older than the girl in that ad. Maybe I'm not seeing the full demographic of the site?

Facing the world

Moof — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:04:14 GMT

I decided to go ahead and upload a real photo of myself for my profile. I hate having my photo taken, and I'm never keen on seeing photos of myself, but I just felt like maybe it was important to be real. I'm listening to "Illinoise," again. Such an amazing album. I love the piano flowing through the entire piece. My wife played piano, and that was something lovely that she would do for me when we were still dating - play her own compositions on the piano. We hardly had enough time for little stuff like that after we were married, and sadly I lost her in a car accident before I could fulfill my promise of buying her a piano for our home. It's been almost four years and some days I wonder if I'll ever stop missing her.

Diversity

Moof — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 20:50:04 GMT

I was checking for new and updated sofware, today (I'm a mac-head), and I found a new web browser that somebody had made by adding a couple new features on top of Apple's WebKit. In the comments section there were four or five rather nasty comments about how there were too many damn web browsers, nowadays, and that this guy should just keep his junk out of their face, if you please. The short-sigtedness of these people blew me away. Diversity is always desirable. If we have a million browsers, we won't have enough. No, not every one will become ubiquitous (ubiquitous browsers are a bad idea, anyways, as we've seen), but the top 4 or 5 will adopt the smart ideas from the rest and try to out-innovate each other - and that's just good for everybody. The worst thing to happen to the web in it's infancy was for Netscape to lose the browser wars. Now the wars are back, and we're seeing some very nice progress, again. Days of plenty are returned and too many browsers are part of the reason.

Intro: Me

Moof — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 22:27:07 GMT

I'm not much on blogging. Seriously. The best conversations are one person face to face with one or a couple friends, and some very real interaction. Having said that, I still like sites like Mog.com because they help me catalogue the vast amounts of crap in my mind. Something that my mind actually has trouble doing on it's own. YouTube and Flickr are beloved for the same reason. Now for the trivia: The photo on my profile is my son. He's about four in the picture, and he's turning seven next month. In the photo, he's wearing my old, beloved, much-missed Sony over-the-ear headphones. The below photo is an amaretto sour - which I kind of would like, right now.