We Should See Other Blogs

I’ve updated Why iTunes Sucks with a truly moving and timeless personal story of one man’s journey from hopelessness to redemption, or something.

I have finally found some new music I actually enjoy. Six albums in all. So I will share:

First off, Herik Jose doesn’t have an album per se, but he sure does have some great music. IDM-influenced with gorgeous vocals and strong melody lines, you can think of him as Postal Service without the bluster and bad metaphors. Free downloads too, by the way.

Jack Penate is a lot of things, but subtle isn’t really one of them. Ballsy dance-rock. “Be The One” stands out on Everything Is New.

I want you to listen to Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit because I they’ve mastered that sort of bluesy slow rock that goes well with whiskey and cigars. Also, great to play along with.

John Paul Keith and the Four One Fives (what’s with all the “and the numbers”?) are throwbacks to another, much more awesome time. Some clear 60s influences here. Awesome music. If it doesn’t force you to get up and dance your legs off, you’ve got problems. Or fewer legs than you should.

Oh dear Kanye West. You’re so ubiquitous that I won’t even link to you. Normally your albums have one, maybe two good songs on them. And then you come out with this. Autotune notwithstanding, 808s and Heartbreak is very, very good. “Paranoid” is wonderful, as is “Love Lockdown”. “Heartless”, though, is clearly the stand-out track.

If you don’t like Ohbijou’s “Beacons”, you clearly have no soul. This is the kind of pop music heaven should be filled with. Perhaps a touch too pitch-perfect, but still. Listen and weep.

It’s been brought to my attention that I use this blog to complain about things a lot. Oh, okay, it wasn’t brought to my attention: I noticed as I was reading that there were a lot of posts essentially bitching about things. The remedy, I think, is to post something positive right now. And in order to do that, I’m going to make a list.

Things I Like

• CBC Radio 1: For those of you in the US, there’s NPR. For us in Canada, there’s CBC Radio 1. All the stuff the other stations won’t play goes here. No commercial pressure leads, I think, to much better programming. Insightful commentary, excellent in-depth news, and radio documentaries (why have I heard so few radio documentaries in my lifetime?) When I get in my car in the morning CBC Radio 1 is the default station.
• Zeugma: If you haven’t already heard, Laura and I adopted a cat. Not just any cat, mind you, but the cutest cat in the whole wide world. I’m usually a fan of short-haired cats, but Zeugma is a medium-hair grey, and still in the kitten stage of running-around-and-playing-with-everything. If it moves, Zeugma will bat a paw at it.
• Nasi Goreng: Best food in the world. Really. Easy to make, painless to store, and spiced with curry. How could I not love a dish so fine?
• Wordplay: I like puns. I like good puns and bad puns and puns that make you groan. Puns, however, aren’t all. I like other kinds of wordplay, like double meanings, irony, sarcasm, that sort of thing.
• Kretek cigarettes: Yum. That’s all I have to say. There are quite a few good things in this world, and Kretek cigarettes are definitely one of the top.
• Friends who give me espresso machines: Best gift ever. Period. I am now well on my way to being an Italian coffee expert. Coming up soon: latte art courtesy of WikiHow.
• WikiHow: Now that I mention it, WikiHow is — after Wikipedia — the wiki I most often visit. You should, too.
• My sister Becca: She does a great job at work. And is delightful to work with.
• And last, but not least, Laura: If there’s ever a moment I say to myself, “Why did I marry you?”, you should hit me with a bear or something, because that’s crazy talk.

• I have a cold right now, one of those three-alarm colds that crawls up into your sinuses with a hot poker and goes to town. Upon waking up this morning, I blew my nose, and though I’ll spare you the gory details, there must have been about 20mm³ there. And, according to the scale this morning, all that weight is coming directly off my waist. Colds are such strange things.
• Note to self: do not blog after taking two Sudafeds.
• Speaking of which, my sister is about to give birth to a baby whose sex as of yet is indeterminate. [Editor's note: Chris Hubbs has reminded me that the sex of the baby is indeed already determined. This should read "unobserved".] I have taken it upon myself to remind her in every way possible that the pain of giving birth is just the beginning of a wonderful journey in snot and poop and vomit.
• Babies, they’re everywhere. This Sunday past, I attended the baptism of Marlene and Mark’s baby. Cutest little thing ever, by the way. It was actually awesome to see all her friends and family come together to celebrate the sign of the covenant, actually (and pardon me if my wording sounds too, well, grandmotherish). Even though I don’t really know Marlene or Mark that well, it was good to be there, and inspired this little poem. That is, in fact, the first baptism I’ve consciously attended (rather than just happening to be there by default) since Kevin’s baptism back in the day.
• Note to self: “Drink lots of water” does not refer to coffee.
• Either I have discovered in myself an ability to make even the most clear issues unclear, or the world isn’t as simple as we sometimes make it out to be. I have a hard time, for instance, with the idea that everything is either black or white; or perhaps I have a hard time with the idea that we can know all the time, that we can differentiate. Sure, a lot of things are perfectly and obviously black and white; but a raft of others seem to be grey, whether they are or aren’t. Maybe I’m just arguing that humans can never actually know everything.
• I have a friend who holds himself above scripture: he discards whatever he likes if it sounds stupid or old-fashioned to him. Since I figured this out, we’ve stopped arguing about a lot of things — except politics, of course — since we just don’t share any common theological ground to begin on. We don’t really agree on the basics, so of course our end points are dissimilar. A wise man, a preacher, once told me that the only thing you can do for such a person is pray that they will one day accept scripture as authority. I find more truth in that idea these days than I used to.
• If you leave your job and don’t leave them with adequate resources and information to replace you, you are irresponsible. If you don’t at least make the effort, I mean. Two weeks notice is sometimes enough, sometimes not.
• If there’s one album you must buy this year, it’s Sean Hayes’ Flowering Spade. It’s, simply put, freaking amazing.
• If you’re considering picking up Interpol’s Our Love to Admire, don’t. They’ve managed to make an expanded musical palette more boring than the original four-piece.

Addendum:

• When you specify a tolerance to the fourth decimal place and then find it undersize to to the fifth decimal place by three hundred-thousandths of an inch, I’m going to explain to you the concept of rounding up, and how, if you want to specify five decimal tolerances, you can twenty thousand dollars per tool. Then you can either take the tool and use it, or throw it in the garbage and see if anyone else will kowtow. I tell you, I should not be in customer service.
• Language is important. It’s the language of deity, the great divider between humans and animals. This is why, when I hear people talking in hillbilly/hiphop slang, I think they’re stupid. They may not be, but they’re acting like it. Intelligence and language go hand in hand.

According to this little survey on how people learn, I am Visual/Nonverbal 32; Visual/Verbal 32; Auditory 18; Kinesthetic 24.

Which apparently means that I use a bunch of different ways to learn things. Which is, I suppose true. It’s accurate in that I remember much better the things that I read or do versus what I hear. I can remember motions and actions, I can picture the words and pages of a book, but I cannot for the life of remember sermons and lectures (at least what the pastor or teacher said; I can almost always remember my impressions of the content and delivery).

So… how do you learn?

Via Internet Duct Tape, 14 Tips to Get More Done in Less Time

1. 1. Find focus. Get rid of distractions.
• Do one thing and get it finished.
• Minimise interruptions amap.
• Prioritise. Remove sources of information with little value.
• Curb useless information addiction
• Take breaks from being “always on”.
2. 2. Be effective. Evaluate effectiveness. Do less.
• Don’t confuse being busy with being effective.
• Write down ideas and get back to them later.
• Know the opportunity cost of your actions and how long something will really take to do.
• Just say no and be willing to do the bare minimum.
3. 3. Use technology efficiently.
• Learn how to search instead of spending time organizing.
• Write first and format later.
• Learn keyboard shortcuts.
• Set up multiple Firefox profiles, one for work and one for fun.
• Technology is your enemy, not your friend.

Here’s a link on how to save money on petrol.

I found it via Lifehacker. Which reminds me that the next time I purchase a vehicle, I am definitely going to buy smaller and more efficient. My Focus isn’t horrible, of course, but it sure wasn’t built with economy in mind; I want one that is.

The problem with that is this: if everyone cuts their fuel consumption in half, the price of gas will go down to the point where cutting consumption will no longer be economically viable. A free market, problem if you will. A tragedy of the commons. I hate to say it, but the only way to curb fuel dependency seems to be keeping prices high, even if that has be achieved artificially.

Hemp has been declared Canada’s most profitable crop. And not the sort of hemp you smoke, either. The sort you use for fibre in manufacturing processes, rope, oil, biodiesel, alcohol, that sort of thing.

A quick note; I absolutely love what the Amarok project has done with its blog. Not that they’ve done anything special, just that they’re interesting. I mean, I love hearing about the guts of things, and seeing what the devs are thinking, especially when it comes to downloading the final app and comparing that with their train of thought.

And, as always, I’m excited as expletive about the release of Amarok 2 for Windows (do I have the version right?). Finally, finally something better than iTunes on Windows. Not that it could miss.

I’m looking forward to using on Windows at work what I use on Ubuntu at home. You know, familiarity and all that expletive.

So, I’m starting over here at Naked & Ashamed. Here’s what I’m doing:

1. Changing the name
2. Clearing out the old plugins
3. Changing the theme
4. Cleaning up the links

The only functionality I’m keeping for sure is the tagging bits. The rest of it, especially Extended Live Archives, is going the way of the dodo.

Edit: I’ve replaced Ultimate Tag Warrior with Simple Tagging, as Simple Tagging is just a way better plugin. And smaller.