Band Name of the Day

Ladies and gentlemen, I now take great pleasure in presenting you with today's over the top band name of the day.

Drum Roll Please.

And So I watch You From Afar

I am currently listening to this band for the first time ever and they seem fine. Nothing bad nothing amazing so far. Pretty droning and what not, but dear God that name is terrible. I am curious why even go with that name. Why not just call yourself, I steal your lint out of your dryer when your not looking, or I plan to hide your bones in my basement one day? I am sure there is some sort allusion in the name, but I have no clue what it is.

However if you like the Battles, or Ox's, Botch, or other such polyrhythmic bands, give them a listen.

Why I find Apple Annoying

Let me begin by saying I really don't care that much about Apple one way or the other. My friends love to try and get me riled up about various subjects*, but I honestly don't really give a damn about Apple computers. If you need a new computer and you are willing to pay a premium price, go for it. I think there OS is better then the last few M$ OS's I have used, but I walk a different path then both of those.

With all that said, I really get pissed when I see Steve Jobs say shit like this, "It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it."

So let's think about both of these ideas, the first one is where I get my most anger. The second is just silly.

Let's take the second first. Task Killers. Steve...it's been a while since I used a MAC, but I am damn near certain that OS X has a way to kill tasks. Does that mean that you blew it on your flag ship OS? Now, maybe you don't have a task killer proper, but I seriously doubt you went through the effort of making it impossible to run kill -9 from the shell**. So let me know when you get that right, and I'll buy your expensive and beautiful hardware.

The first thought really chaps my ass though. It just seems to be another case of Jobs just pushing his own agenda on style. Look I understand that a stylus is annoying when you have to use it for everything you're doing, but is it really that hard to imagine how a stylus could be super useful? Let's go with two quick examples.

1) Students: Maybe just maybe students would like to be able to download lecture notes, and annotate them directly on their light weight and portable tablet in class. That way you are reading the notes and making your own notes at the same time. That's right kids, all your thoughts about the subject in one handy place. Yeah...that would be blowing it Steve.

2) People who have to go to presentations all the time: Now this a broad category I know, but let's spit ball a couple of ways this could be awesome. How about an app that let's everyone connect to a site where a presentation is being given, and various people can annotate a presentation as it's happening. You can either work on your own copy or you could have a shared copy that everyone is writing ideas down on. Yeah...that would suck. I much prefer the meeting notes that often make little to no sense and are hard to correlate back to what was actually happening.

Since going green is all the rage, wouldn't be it be great to be able to go to a
meeting, and instead of getting tons of handouts everyone gets their on copy of
the hand out on their tablet that they can mark up any way the wish? Companies it
crap like that up.

Again, I believe over all Apple is a solid company. They are not (in general) my cup of tea, but I can see why people like them. However when Jobs says bullshit like this it drives nuts. Maybe...just maybe Steve, there are many people out there with different needs then your own, and maybe just maybe a more open approach would allow you to increase your market share even more. Or maybe you're simply not interested in that sort of thing. Your call.




*usually with a good bit of success.

**For those who are not into the Unix, kill -9 is how you cause any process to end on a *nix OS. OS X is built off FreeBSD, which in turn is similar to Unix. Got all that?

*** A solid argument can be made that it is in fact his job to push his agenda

Song Of The Day

I'd Rather Dance to a Pynchon Novel. The song is by the oh so wonderful Kids Explode. They recently called it a day as a band, but in their fairly short time they put a some very solid records. They are one the bands most responsible for my dipping a toe back into record buying.

I mostly enjoy the title because I can't make it through Pynchon novels, and I don't dance. So I imagine whatever it is someone wants you do do that is worse then dancing to a Pynchon novel must be pure hell.

Might I Schill for someone else for a moment?

I know, I know I keep swearing in public how I hate music and such, and while that is clearly tounge and cheek, I do find it a very hard subject to talk about with most people. With all that said, can I maybe...just maybe implore you to go and give Damezumari a chance?

See I am not convinced that they are going to be the cup of tea that most of my friends would enjoy*, but I spend an unhealthy amount of time listening to them on the internets, and they have just made their entire catalog available for download. This makes me over the moon happy. Not because it's for free download**, but because their records are very very difficult to track down and they don't tour. Also they sound like some nice fellows who put some thought into what they are doing, and you can't really ask for much more then that.

What's that, you want to know my favorite songs by the band? Sure I can do that.

Gravity is a Choice
Second Chance
A Bitter Means to a Bitter End
The Mark on the Wall
Becoming Instead of Just Being.

Those are just a few of the bands many many great songs. So yeah, if you enjoy it great. If not...well OK, that's fair.

*I like a good Rooibos fruit infused tea or a nice mint tea should you want to buy me some.

**Truth be told every time I look at a record distro I look for their stuff, and would be more then happy to pay full price for all of it.

Song of the Day

That's right kids, it's only 8:20 in the morning cst, and we already have the song of the day.

"Flattery is a Bunch of Fucking Bullshit" by Daughters.

I don't actually like Daughters very much. They are super fast and tech in a way in which that I am not interested. However, I did go out to eat at a Chinese buffet with them once long ago. They were super nice, and I believe either my friend Becky had a thing for one of the guitar players or one of the guitar players had a thing for my friend Becky.

By the way, isn't the phrase, "He has a thing for her" a little disturbing. I mean what exactly is the thing?

On Gasoline

A quick story that appears to have a happy ending.

Tuesday on my way home from work I decided to swing by the ole gas station and fill up the tank. Now, despite knowing that I can get away with using the 86 octain gas, I opt for 93. It's just something I have always done. It made the Camry run great for all those years after all. Well it seems the 40 dollars I put in my tank isn't exactly what one would call fuel so much as water.*

So, armed with my new tank of water I proceeded to drive 3.3 miles down the road, at which point the water simply wasn't enough to make the ole Volvo go. I really thought my car was efficent, but I suppose it ain't no hybrid... So I am now stuck in the left turn lane on the corner of Houston Levee and Macon.

I get my car towed to the dealership. I am feeling pretty ok at this moment because I am proud of myself for having gotten the extended warranty. Hey did you know that extended warranties don't cover putting bad fuel in your car? True story.

The next day I get a ride over to the gas station, at which point I find out that many other folks have ended up with this same problem. Luckily the guy who owns the station is a nice enough fellow, and he claimed that they would cover all of my expenses**. So I leave somewhat secure in the knowledge that I am going be getting my money back. Then the ole Volvo dealership calls to inform me that my car is going to cost about 1400 dollars to fix.

If you heard a loud sound about 11:45 AM on Wednesday Feb 10th, that was my heart flying into my throat. Luckily I was able to come up with cash to get my car out of the shop.

Here is the really really crazy part, a mere three days after putting the bad gas in my car, my car is completely fixed and I have already been payed back by the gas stations insurance company. Who says large chain corparations are bad***?

It seems that if I had used the 86 I would have gotten actual fuel. Only the 93 and the 89 had a problem.

**Note: I didn't really believe the guy at the time, because...well...I am the kind of guy who randomly ends up with a tank full of water. Things don't always go as planned is what I am saying.


***I do that's who. Though this time they worked in my favor

Quick Question

Has there ever been a major pro bike race where someone said, "It's totally cool to just sit at the back of the peloton." What do athletes even say crap like this, "It's really important to be in the lead group."