05/11
Warm-Up Phase:
“This Language” - Stateless
“Whispering Wind” - Moby
Work Phase:
“UNKLE Reconstruction” - Michael Giacchino & UNKLE
“Five Four” - The Gorillaz
“Weapons of Mass Distortion” - The Crystal Method
“Genetic Blueprint” - Fear Factory
“Somewhere I Belong” - Linkin Park
“One Man Army” - The Prodigy and Tom Morello
“Ladies and Gentlemen” - Saliva
“She Builds Quick Machines” - Velvet Revolver
Cool-Down Phase:
“Loui” - Ronald Jenkees
“Warning Shots” - Gunjan, Sleeping Wonder & Thievery Corporation
05/7
ZenHabits has a great piece on how to keep yourself focused while at work.
Obviously, blogging about the article is a way to lose focus.
05/2
Photo by Tomoyoshi. Licensed under the Creative Commons
I’ve got a thing for good product design. What can I say? It’s what keeps me attracted to Apple’s line of products, it influences my choices on the bike (we can have the Shimano Dura-Ace vs. SRAM Red debate another time), and so on.
There’s just something about the Nissan GT-R (the “Skyline”) that just does it for me.
Every sports car has a look that says, “Get out of my way.” A large majority of them are like the totally hot chick in high school that you had a huge crush on, even though she was a total air-head. She’d giggle and ask you to move, and you’d comply. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and so on fall into this category.
Some sports cars are more the refined European aristrocrat. Imagine an Oxford accent, with them holding a little cup of tea, pinky extended. “I say, good chap, would you mind clearing the way? That’s a good man.” This is your Mercedes or Jaguar.
American muscle cars are the jock in high school that used to stuff you into your locker.
The GT-R is in a class all it’s own. This is a car that says, very quietly, “Get out of my way or I’m going to stab you in the face. Repeatedly.”
Honestly, I think this might be Japan’s first true muscle car, and damn if it isn’t the hottest thing on the planet.
Hey Nissan, any interest in giving an advocate a 2009 GT-R Premium with the all-weather tires and Super Silver paint?
Yeah, I didn’t think so. We’ll talk after I win the lottery on Saturday night.
04/8
So I got asked the following questions by Christopher Hawley:
1) Your take on the Olympics, the venue, and whether bicycling is adequately represented in the official events
2) optimism/realism/cynicism/pessimism: where do you see yourself on this spectrum? Is there another position which you would prefer to find yourself?
3) perversity of the universe, and why it tends to a maximal value (possibly one of Niven’s Laws, but ICBA to check): any personal anecdotes or insights?
[Here’s a starting topic: Why are people who are most hard of hearing the most likely to unplug the phone ‘because its ringing would disturb my sleep’?]
Well, let’s go through these one at a time.
First, the Olympics and cycling’s place in it. The venue? I’m fine with the games being hosted in China. Sure, they’ve got some human rights issues that they need to work out, but as a whole, I’m fine with the games being hosted there. That said, however, I feel bad for any endurance athlete that has to compete in Beijing’s air pollution. Read the rest of this entry »
04/6
Things I learned from my really drunk girlfriend last night:
1. In discussing Charlton Heston’s death, I learned that there are twelve commandments, not ten. She could not, however, tell me what the two additions were.
2. She won a best butt contest. On-stage. I’m not surprised by this, really. It is rather impressive.
04/5
Photo courtesy of dunechaser. Licensed under the Creative Commons.
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and I wrote nothing in here about it. From that, you could infer that this factoid is meaningless to me. That inference would be wrong, despite my being born four years (and change) after his death.
I could go on and on about how the world is a much better place for his having been here, and how much poorer we are since his passing, but that would be just repeating the words of others. There’s not much I could say that would add value to the conversation.
Leaders like Dr. King are a rarity. Using only the power of rhetoric, they can make you sit up and take notice of a situation that’s wrong, despite hundreds of years as a practice. They can create change by the force of those words and their willpower. And they can make the world a better place, simply by manipulating the language that binds all of us together and forming it into a mirror that forces us to see ourselves and the world around us not only as we are, but as we should be.
And as a writer, that’s something that inspires the hell out of me.
04/4
Photo courtesy of jenn_jenn. Licensed under the Creative Commons.
Finances are coming along. It’s payday and everything’s been paid. I’ve adopted a new policy that I think is going to work wonders for my paying off of everything.
I’m already making more-than-minimum payments on everything. That’s just common sense, right? Right.
In addition to that, I have a new folder full of bookmarks to all the online payment places for my bills. My new policy for credit accounts is to pay something toward them every payday, even when they’ve been paid or there’s nothing due before the following payday. At least an additional $20 each, more if I can swing it.
Really, it’s not that much extra, and it helps get me to my goal that much faster.
04/2
So I haven’t anything particular to post about here, so I’m going to break it down into some bullet points and let you wander all over the map with me:
- Every so often, I have one of those moments where I ask myself, “What the fuck is wrong with me?” In this case, it would be while listening to Van Morrison’s Moondance album. This is one of those things that people have been recommending to me for years, knowing of my fondness for early Counting Crows. I’m finally giving this album a listen and am loving it.
- Speaking of the Counting Crows, I gave their newest a spin last week, and honestly? I’m still underwhelmed and of the opinion that Recovering the Satellites was their last really, really good album. Everything since has one or two good songs and a lot of filler. Honestly, guys? Your band is getting too large and you’re getting over-produced. Get back to your original five and strip the sound back to what it was with August and Everything After….
- Lately, TV shows seem to be a good source for finding music. I think this really started while I was watching Scrubs, and countless other shows have really driven me toward stuff I hadn’t listened to before. I’m not so naïve as to think that this isn’t just a degree of product placement by the record labels, but it’s strange how I’m finding both new artists and deeper tracks from artists I already listen to. I’d be curious to know what other shows are driving your music acquisition…
- The RIAA recently came up with a new protectionist idea that they want to institute. They want to use what little clout they have left to institute a system in which ISPs would charge users an extra $x per month, payable directly into RIAA coffers, which would allow users to download all the music they want, and would insulate the ISPs from litigation over the allowing of P2P protocols. This, of course, sounds all well and good in theory. But many things sound good in theory.
What the RIAA has stated, but less publicly, is that these free downloads would all be a DRM’ed format, and that this format would allow the RIAA to ’shut off’ your music if you ever stopped paying the monthly license fee. This is, of course, another case of the RIAA trying to control something that it is utterly impossible to control. (And don’t even get me started on their claims that this $5 would be split among the artists based on the number of downloads.)
What the RIAA doesn’t get is that the only way this shit will fly is if it’s basic, non-watermarked MP3 files, and we can bring back the old Napster. In which case, I’m totally fine with paying $5 a month.
04/1
Man, remember when Reagan quoted from “Born in the U.S.A.” without realizing what the song was about?
Well, Hillary, bless her shriveled little heart, likened herself to Rocky today. More to the point:
‘Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people,’ Clinton said in excerpts of prepared remarks to be given Tuesday to a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.
This, of course, makes me wonder if she’s even seen Rocky?
I mean, really. Rocky loses in the end. To the black guy.
This calls for some serious Photoshopping. I just don’t have the time for such things.
(No, not an April Fools joke, either.)
Dan Bailey