Author: Dave

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haaaaumpph!


Been battling this sinus thing for more than a week now, my nose stuffs up at night and drains down the back of my throat. The snot makes its way down into my chest, and I’m still unsure what series of “tubes” in me it slithers down to get just where it lodges, but it gets there and sets up camp. Entrenched in whatever pocket it ends up in, I feel it there and am wont to hack and cough and “haaaaumpph!” it up. I stand in the shower every morning and cough and

Well, I’m now comfortable moving out of the realm of speculation and declaring that “hi” is indeed Keaton’s 1st word. Based on the context in which she uses it, and her little “hello” handwave that goes with it, I’m 99% positive she’s mimicking our own hi’s to her. I was telling Pat this weekend how, the first time I actually realized she was waving in response to my own “hi” or “bye,” it was pretty amazing. May seem simple, but to me it was confirmed comprehension and communication – it was the first time my own daughter had “spoken” to me, even though she didn’t use words (at the time), and I was thrilled.

On a somewhat related note, I was marveling the other night to Sharaun about how amazing I think it is that babies just learn how to talk. I mean, just by virtue of being around people who are speaking, their brains 1st memorize words and then start putting them together. It’s hard for me to think about learning something from complete scratch like that. It’s so different from, say, me signing up for a course in classical sculpture at the local community college. There, I’d have a teacher telling me things, a book to study from, tests to gauge my absorption and comprehension of the new things I’d added to my brain. For Keaton, though, she just learns by being immersed in it. I think about me being plopped down in the studio with a professional drummer, and doubt I’d be drumming myself in less than a year. So yeah, that she says “hi” is fairly awesome to me.

If you couldn’t tell by all my talk of “leaks” and “trackers” and whatnot, I’ve become completely engrossed with BitTorrent. And, believe it or not, I’m talking primarily about “legal” torrent activity. There are several trackers, both members-only and “open,” which enforce strict “no copyrighted material” rules and don’t accept illegal material. The better of these trackers trade only in live and unreleased material. Material previously known as, and only available as, bootlegs. Back in the day, I was obsessed with this type of material – obsessed with bootlegs. I’d pay up to $30 a disc for the rarest and most intriguing. But now, with BitTorrent, material not even available to high-dollar bootleggers (who were mostly funded by various international mafia) is all over the ‘net.

Private collectors are either getting savvy, or passing years and years of lovingly cared-for master tapes to savvier friends, and live and unreleased gems are showing up all over the place. Over the past couple months, I’ve been scouring these trackers and I’ve found some simply astounding material. Insanely amazing live shows from Neil Young, Santana, Hendrix, Zeppelin. Studio outtakes and sessions from Derek & the Dominos, the Allman Brothers band. I’m talking unbelievable stuff here, stuff that’s never been heard before, stuff that’s brand new, just unleashed on the world’s ears. And ohh… am I addicted; I’m sooo addicted. Only problem I see is when all these FLAC beauties fill up my 3/40-terabyte drive and I have to upgrade… but for now I’m just a-downloadin’ away.

BitTorrent is surely the future of filetrading, and I think it’s already bringing tapes long collecting dust on collectors’ shelves to the masses, and will only continue to do so at in increased level as time goes on. Great sites like etree and dime and tradersden, these places are doing wonders for the ease of obtaining uber-rare and exciting performances, and I’m fully on-board and keeping my ratio high for good karma.

One of the folks I work with recently brought me some honest-to-goodness saffron from Iran (yes, I know it’s illegal, but I find I enjoy it with my cuban cigars). So, tonight, I decided to try and use this “most exotic” of all spices and cook for Sharaun. I called another Persian coworker of mine to get a recipe for saffron chicken and rice. It turned out OK, needed more onions and salt, but it was pretty good. I’m actually very fond of the saffron taste, it’s super unique to me – Sharaun’s not so smitten. Anyway, I’m not sure I cooked it right – but it was quite palatable with a little salt. I don’t know, sometimes, why I write paragraphs like this… booooring…

Mischa, your fans care about you, please stop smoking.

Goodnight.

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setting the scene, quoting the players


Another blurringly-busy day at work today. Tonight we again had dinner with the older couple we know from church. We talked of B17s and bombing sorties over Southern Germany; of riding motorcycles around the makeshift hangers on a unassuming US airstrip in England, the hangers covered with brush as camouflage; of French pistols, the spoils of war; of flack from anti-aircraft guns at 30,000ft; of breaking formation to dodge scrambled German props. Unbelievable evening, had a great time. Was still in a writing mood when I got home, so for Friday I’m gonna get a little blue (OK a lot blue). Some scenes I remember, and quotes to go with them.

Scene: Boy in his room, showing a friend’s girlfriend something on his computer. There is a small group of people outside on the back porch, the boyfriend of the girl is one of them. She’s petite, her body tight and and small, making her look younger than she is. The boy perceives a signal, subtle body language – he makes his move, there is no protest. His hand moves under her shirt, along her side, up to her bra. She moves against his touch, providing “go ahead” pressure as his hand trails along her soft skin. No underwire, not much filling the cups but he doesn’t care, he’s dizzy in the moment – so risky, so exciting. Pushing aside the satiny fabric, he traces, pinches, pulls and pets.
Quote: “He’s right outside… No. Don’t stop. I’m so horny. Do you want to go somewhere?” “I can’t. He’s right outside.”

Scene: Boy and girl at work, it’s a Sunday in the mall and trade is light, there is plenty of time to talk and flirt. As the three-person shift progresses, the boy, who is the assistant manager, sends the third employee to the floor. He and the girl are left behind the counter, this is by design. She is younger, not “tight” or “petite” at all, rather healthy and amply bosomed. She has blonde hair, he thinks it may be fake, but he doesn’t care. The small flirtation continues, he’s always considered himself good at this game, and his conceit is confirmed as things seem to be progressing well. This is unusual, as he usually waits until success is all but a sure thing before making a move, this time he’s just forging ahead blindly. At the end of the day, he gets to choose who “closes” with him, he gets to send the other one home. He’ll count the money, note the total in the book, he’ll enclose the comparative running total as compared to last year in <carrot -parentheses>, it’s always negative compared to last year. He’ll put the money in the safe, she’ll be vacuuming the sales floor. Yes that’s his plan, and he’d successfully execute it later, but for now they stand behind the counter. He decides to be bold. His hand touches her leg through her pantyhose, there is no protest. Bolder still, he uses the midriff-high sales counter to his advantage, pushes up her black dress and moves inward on her thigh. There are are customers in the store, but to them the two torsos behind the sales counter are simply standing there. He reaches his goal, bolder than ever now.
Quote: “When are we going to fuck?” “I thought you’d never ask.”

Scene: Boy and girl sit in a car, he in the passenger seat and her in the driver’s. It’s her car. The boys arm stretches across the stickshift, his hand disappearing under unzipped jeans and polka-dotted cottons, working. It’s his first time inside her car, his first time inside her. They are both nervous as hell, their leaned-in kisses awkwardly twisting their bodies across the gulf of the parking break. She pants, but protests.
Quote: “Let’s move to the back seat.” “I can’t, not now.” “Just let me taste you, I just want to taste you.” “I can’t, not here.”

Scene: Boy at girl’s house, her parents are out of town, it’s the Fourth of July. For the longest time, he’s thought things could be “on” between them if he only made a move. He’s deathly afraid, she’s harder to read than any girl he’s previously courted. Boy has been trying to win back an old girlfriend, but it’s not this girl. This girl is small, petite, tight. She’s not the same small, petite, tight girl from the computer chair. All evening, he’s on the edge of making a move, on the edge of making a mistake, on the edge of faithfulness. She’s wearing one of those “at home” outfits that girls, particularly cheerleaders, wear when they want to entice boys: a tight-fitting pink tanktop with thin straps and short, short pants made out of grey cotton. He’s pretty sure he has permission, but he’s got a case of morality. He tries to leave.
Quote: “Please don’t leave, stay the night here tonight with me.” “I can’t.” “Please, I’m scared of the noise, the fireworks, you can stay with me in my room.”

Scene: He’s tutoring her, in math. He lays on his bed, she sits with her back to him, against the bed so he can look over her shoulder and see her book, equation, and work as she writes. He corrects her, gives her helpful hints and little explanations. The parabola opens upward if the slope is positive, she nods. She’s dressed for soccer practice, jersey and white Umbros, he can see through the white Umbros: striped panties, like a rainbow candycane. Her long blonde hair reflects the light in strands, it smells otherworldly as he peers over her shoulder. She gets it right, x=7, he reaches around to put his hand on her chin, he turns her head. Her skin is ghostly pale, he loves it, her legs gleam like alabaster pillars, her thighs like fresh cream. She turns her head, her eyes are already closed, her lips, so thin and pink, are presented and at the ready. They kiss, her tongue is pointier than he’s used to. She’s stunningly beautiful to him, so innocent.
Quote: “Sharaun is my friend.” “I know.”

Scene: Two young kids in the back of a car, clothes completely off. The car is parked in an open field in the woods. A field which, years ago, used to be the “parking” part of a drive-in movie theater. The teenagers grope, fogging up the windows. It’s cold outside, but warm humid in the car. The air smells of perfume and sweat and dried saliva on naked skin, and things are heating up. The girl is a virgin, the boy has two notches on his belt. Things are heating up. The boy knows he’s not getting lucky tonight, not in the strict sense of the term, but he does have a plan. He asks the girl if she wants to see something she’s never seen before, and in her best shy-excited voice she affirms she does. He says it’s nearly time. And that’s how two naked kids found themselves standing outside a car in the freezing darkness, the girl manipulating the boy, working to see something she’d never seen before. Their breath comes fast and ragged, accelerated by the moment, heavy with anticipation. The boy gives one final warning, then rocks up onto his toes as his muscles tense.
Quote: “It’s so warm. Is it always that warm?” “Yeah, always.” “I want to do this again, did I do it right?” “Yes, you did it perfect.”

Enough of this filth, again, and again, and again.

Goodnight.

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liveblogging the leak


Work is busy… stoopid busy like cauliflower. Hey, did Tuesday’s blog ever go public?! I noticed last night that it was marked “private,” and wondered if anyone even got to read it… Damn, that makes me mad. I was proud of Tuesday’s entry and I effed it up. And, I was under the impression that people might be thinking, “Dave’s on a roll this week.” Instead, they were thinking, “Dave let us down again.” Damn damn – go read it, please?. Anyway for today, I had this huge story written thinking it would have an awesome ending, but I was wrong. So here it is, endingless, because I didn’t write anything else and, besides, I kinda liked it.

My story about “the night Neon Bible leaked” is pretty good. It may sound silly, but I literally felt like a small piece of a larger organism. It all started Tuesday night (well, started getting good). I was sitting on the couch refreshing a thread on a popular music messageboard over and over and over again. One poster said his French-speaking buddy got an IM from another buddy saying he had the album, that buddy would pass it on to the frog who’d in turn pass it along to the poster who’d in turn leak it to the masses. The only reason mass “bullshit” wasn’t called on said poster was his good repute with past leaky matters. Later, he confirmed the truity of the friend-of-a-friend story by upping a high-quality rip of a track that was, up until that point, only available as a shit 96Kbps rip (trust me, sounded awful on the iPod in the car). Hearing the song in good quality only got me refreshing more tabs in sequence. Load ’em all up: hipster forums, insider blogs, trackers public and private; load ’em all up and do the Control-Tab -> F5 -> Control-Tab -> F5 tango…

Real-looking item appears on a well-known public tracker-tracker, I decide to wait until it hits a more reputable source or someone confirms it as the real deal… try to stay away from public trackers, especially with something of this magnitude… screams RIAA honeypot. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Check the trackers, public and private. Refresh. Trackers. Refresh. Trackers. Firefox begins to lumber under the load, having been open all day its notorious memory leak has it consuming a whopping 123,000K of my available RAM – but I don’t dare close it and waste potential precious time. Back in the forum, the “this many readers are reading this post” count kept climbing and climbing as word began to trickle out. Original leakster returned to say he had to hit the sack, must have been bedtime where he was – no leak, hopes dwindle.

Three hours have gone by since this started, I’ve pretty much been buzzing around the laptop every five minutes to F5 my sources. In between, I’m writing yesterday’s (and this) blog, and half watching people make fools of themselves on American Idol. Man, time flies, I can remember thinking how long it would be until the next American Idol when the last one ended. I’m going to switch to present-tense now, as I’ve caught this entry up to real time. I’m still waiting for word back about the one on the well-known public-tracker… people on the boards are dutifully opening themselves to lawsuits in the spirit of keeping the rest of us informed. But now it’s too late, I have to go to bed… Sixish hours of sleep later and no leak. Off to work.

At work it was me and the boarders again, on the collective edge of our collective seats, watching the lead downloaders of the publicly-tracked (and widely assumed fake) file post their “percent completes.” I would keep the thread open in Firefox and F5 every few minutes, since I can’t load up the “questionable” sites here at work (well, I guess I can, but I’m not gonna) – I have to rely on the forums and blogs for news. I’ve already briefed Sharaun on how to kickoff the download at home if something budges. I feel like a man obsessed, getting worried about the buildup. It’s just… I’m waiting on the followup to what I personally think was the best rock album in the past ten, fifteen, twenty years (sorry Nevermind… and, when was Joshua Tree again?)… I’m a bit excited.

Work goes by, 8am to 5pm, meetings and phone calls and e-mails and meetings and phone calls. Work was stoopid busy like cauliflower. But, all the while I kept the internets in the taskbar, refreshing when I could. Nothing still. At home, I laid off a little… realizing now that most of the promises were bunk… and that we were no closer to a leak than when the first tracks trickled out weeks ago.

If you’re a praying person, I’d appreciate your petitions on behalf of the leak. Goodnight people.

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workforce of me


It’s now about twenty till eight on Tuesday night, and the message boards are once again alive with rumors of a Neon Bible leak before 11pm Eastern (about 40min from now, my time). These days though, with anticipation running higher than Paula Abdul on a Monday morning, everyone’s pulling the old “zOMG it leaked!!!” gag – so I remain cautiously optimistic. Ehhh… the waiting. I should know for sure by the denouement here, so let’s get down to brass tacks (what the hell does that mean?).

In the coming days you may be surprised to see some newish looking content on the Sounds Familiar frontpage. That’s right, I’ve integrated some minimal Google AdSense text-advertisements into the entry loop near the bottom. Hopefully, these won’t detract much from the glory of my writing, or pigeonhole my blog as a simple front to make ducats. I just figured, why not try and make some cash from page impressions… if I’m getting them and all, the ads are pretty non-intrusive to me, and really don’t bother me much (especially if I get a check every month). Pat joked that I’d get a whopping $2.53 a month, and he’s probably right – but I want to at least give a shot and see what happens. So, in short – I’m selling out and I don’t care. Maybe the ads’ll stay, maybe they won’t. But for now, watch for ’em.

Sometimes, at work, I wonder what it would be like if all the people I managed were me. I mean, if they were all clones of me. At first the idea seems sort of good, all moral aspects of cloning aside, because I know and trust myself to do things right. You know what they say, “If you want something done right…” Unfortunately, that’s largely true for me – I really do think I do a good job on most things, so why wouldn’t my me-cloned workforce do just as good? Maybe they would. Often times I catch myself thinking that I could do things faster and better if I just did them myself. This notion is one part asshole, one part bravado, and one part truth. That’s not to say that I’ve been unsatisfied with things I’ve owned at work before, but I knew as I was working on them that I’d ultimately be less-than beaming with pride over them in the end. I also knew I could change that, but deemed the means unjustifiable based on the ends. But, back to the workforce-of-me…

As rosy as the me-workforce may look at first glance, the more I think about it the more I realize how much it would suck. For instance, if I were managing a bunch of mes, there’d be all sorts of limitations: I’d have an entire group working to only about 70% of their potential; I’d have no way to overcome the limitations of the group (like the long ramp-time before they possess enough self-confidence to be truly effective, and their on-again/off-again motivation); and their inherent laziness and favor of flight over fight when things get unpleasant. I’d always wonder if the tasks given to them ended up falling in the 80% “give my all” bucket or the 20% “half-ass it” bucket, and worse always know that division is purely arbitrary. See, I’m an opportunistic procrastinator who’s good at hand-waving and smoke and mirrors. But, maybe, when you get down to it, every workforce is a sometimes-motivated workforce. Hell, there’s even procrastination science, check it:

Desire to Complete Task (U) = Expectation of Success (E) x Value of Completion (V) / Immediacy of Task (I) x Personal Sensitivity to Delay (D), or U=ExV/IxD

Sooo… by that logic, my desire to complete the work I was doing this morning would stackup something like this (I have no idea how to use the equation, so I’m assigning everything a value between 0-10):

Desire to Complete Task (U) = (10 x 10) / (8 x 3) = 4.17

I guess that means I less than half-fully wanted to do the task. Hmmm….

Lot of news around the internet about Sen. Obama’s continuing lean towards casting his lot into the ’08 race, but it’s still just a “strong maybe” as far as I can tell. The hopes of the partisan-disenfranchised moderates are running high though, as Mr. Obama seems to exude some sort of middle-of-the-road intelligent sensibilities and charisma that draws folks in. Personally, my positive feelings for the guy were based pretty much solely on his patriotic, impassioned and eloquent public speaking – but I admittedly know little about his true “stance” on many things (funny how good public speaking can make you just want to “assume” that because he seems like a “nice, logical guy” he’s got sensible positions and ideas – the power of charisma). So, I took to the internets to see what the deal is. One of my favorite sites to visit for a quick idea on where a politician stands on the issues is onthissues.org. While their site design is craptacular, their Obama page is a good point of reference. It’ll be interesting to see if he can keep the warm fuzzy going through to when then herd really starts to thin – what a job for his PR guy(s).

I read this story on off-grid.net the other day (off-grid is a great place to keep up-to-date on the whole, well, off-grid movement – which I’ve fantasized about many times before). How cool would it it be to have a machine that just “makes” water from the air? Now, if I could only figure out how to run that machine hydro-power, and using its own water for the hydro part…hey, I just invented a perpetual motion machine! Please line up to my right for Nobel Prize votes.

Goodnight. (Oh, 11pm now and still no leak. Sharaun says I’m the only one who wakes up every two hours to check… I doubt that… right?…. Want in on the fun? This blog is surprisingly “tied in.” Enjoy.)

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foolish faith


Monday night and I finally gave into this sickness I’ve been trying to shake the past week or so, coming home after noon to try and get some rest (didn’t work, ended up on the phone or e-mail the entire time). Monday night and Neon Bible still hasn’t leaked (the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! did though, so that helps a little). I really though it’d be soon after those five tracks dribbled out last week… I think they’re just messing with me now. Hurry! Up! Arcade! Fire! Let’s write now.

I wanted to start these next few paragraphs with an impactful, attention-grabbing sentence: In this day and age in America, religion, Christianity in particular, I fear, is headed for the same fate as the Southern accent.

If you haven’t noticed, in recent times the Southern accent has, quite unfairly, been associated with ignorance. I’m not sure where this stereotype actually came from, but you can pick up on it from just about any piece of pop culture from the last 70 years or so: look at Gomer Pyle, who was famous for his idiocy, and had the most pronounced twang in Mayberry; there’s Cleetus, the “slack-jawed” yokel from the Simpsons; the entire premise of the backwoods hillbilly Clampett family being misplaced in the modern world. Yeah sure, those shows are serving to foster the image, and maybe it’s unfair to use them as examples – but for more proof you don’t have to look much further than Saturday Night Live’s President Bush caricature. When did having a Southerly drawl automatically lower your perceived IQ? I’m not claiming it’s ubiquitous, not everyone is shallow enough to pigeonhole someone by their accent, but still – it’s there.

When I was a kid, we used to this incredibly mean and insensitive thing when we wanted to ape an idiot. We’d let our hand hang limp at the wrist, and then repeatedly thump it against our breast while making “Der, der, duh, der” sounds. This was an imitation of a “Jerry’s Kid.” Crazy thing was, as a kid I really didn’t even know what I was doing. I mean, I knew I was somehow making fun of retarded kids, who apparently beat their own broken wrists against their chests on the Jerry Lewis Telethon – but I had no idea how mean it really was. We were just calling each other stupid. Make a dumbass comment, and I’m gonna tease you by thumping my chest and doing my best “Uhhh, derrr, oohhhuhh.” See, I didn’t really know any retarded kids (that’s not entirely true, but mostly so) – but I assumed they were all stupid (OK, strict definition of “retarded” aside) and therefore a good point of reference when calling out someone else as such. Hicks, yokels, Okies, hillbillies, rednecks, Johnny Rebs. And I think Christians are headed the same way. Instead of tomorrow’s kids beating their chests with limp wrists, maybe they’ll thump and imaginary Bible or fold their hands in mock prayer.

Being religious is is turning into being stupid, and it’s happening fast. Oh sure, throughout history people have always been “too smart” to have faith, the whole science vs. faith thing has been around for eons, but I think it’s different these days. Today, the loudest voice is not longer the church and it’s various supporters installed as kings and queens. Today, the voice heard above the most is that of media and celebrity. And that is, more often than not, not the church’s voice (some might say it’s the voice of reason, others the voice of Satan). Regardless, if the believing collective don’t get their act together soon and do a major PR campaign, they risk being forever viewed as the Flat Earth Society – the new Jerry’s Kids, the new Cleetuses. Plenty of smart people believe in God, right? Doesn’t matter – who’s going to willingly join a organization of dinosaurs futilely holding onto the old ways? You may think that, as everyone gets dumber, everything will balance out – but I disagree. Everyone being dumb just means it’s easier for those who aren’t to convince the masses their way is correct.

I’m rambling now. Let’s sum it up: Christians in danger of being recast as simpletons, need to come up with plan of action before this fate unfairly befalls them. Stereotypes are bad, but they’re also powerful as hell and take centuries to overcome.

I wrote fast, probably full of typos, omissions, and things I didn’t mean. Goodnight bitches.

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the liberated vandal


Saturday morning Keaton came down with the pukes. She returned her morning oatmeal to mom not but an hour after happily eating it, and the refused to eat solids for the remainder of the day. On top of that, all she wanted to do was sleep. Sharaun and I spent the day taking turns letting her rest on our chests as we lay or sat on the couch being lazy. I felt bad for her, as she was so obviously not herself, but a little part of me loved her resting quietly on my chest and being so snuggly – reminded me of when she was brand new. Under different circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed it – but seeing her so lethargic really bummed me out (and worried me a little, as we’ve not really seen her act like that before). But, Sunday was a new day – and she seemed pretty much her normal self. Sharaun and I figured she’d either eaten something that disagreed with her (not that we don’t know her diet or anything), or had some quick 24hr bug. Whatever it was, she seems OK now.

Speaking of Keaton, Sunday we decided to go spend all the money we’ve been avoiding spending on her. It’s time for her to get a new carseat, time for us to stop building couch-cushion forts and buy real baby-gates, and time to get some locking things on the cabinets she loves to get into. All told, we ended up spending ~$200. Kids are expensive, and you there’s little way to minimize that. It’s not like we’re making frivolous purposes motivated by want, we can’t avoid this stuff. Kids cost money, that’s for sure – regardless if you have it, they’re gonna consume it. So anyway, I worked on putting up the 8ft gate tonight (Sunday), and about twelve gnarly holes in our wall later I had it working. Of course, it’s a damn gate where I’m used to walking freely – so I can’t really call it convenient… but I guess it’s not that bad. A little spackle and spray-on knockdown later, and you’d never know how many swearwords I said during the procedure. Kids, man… they cost money.

And now, an exercise in “real” writing, just to see if I can still do it.

I used to hate people who fold the corners of the pages of books to mark their place. I always had this strange notion that books should be kept pristine, that they were valuable and deserved to be “taken care of.” For that reason, I used to cringe when I’d get a book from the library with creased dogeared corners every thirty pages or so, used to wonder at the disrespect for “community” property these people had. I know that may sound odd, coming from a guy who prizes his coming-of-age years for their social rebellion and watered down anarchy, but I that’s how I felt. Maybe it was because my dad had so many books, so many great books, as well as such a passion for reading. I somewhat realize now that my dad, much like me (or rather, I much like him), is a collector. The “what” of the collecting isn’t really that important, only during the time that “what” is the focus, really – no, it’s the collecting that’s important. Now see, I’ve gotten all off-track, and I’ve covered the my collector urges here before so – back to the page-folders.

Like I was saying I used to hate people who folded the pages of their books to mark their spot. I don’t hate them anymore, though. In fact, I myself now dogear pages in my books. Why? I think, partly, because I realize now that books are meant to be consumed, and as such would logically be subject to the same wear and tear that befalls anything that’s “used.” And, since we’re not yet in some post-apocalyptic state where paper or written history has surpassed gold in value, my concern with keeping books in “mint condition” was plain silly. Furthermore, I at some point came to the realization that owning books is somewhat pointless. For me, owning books is kind of like owning movies – it seems great to the collector in me, to the materialist in me, but in practice it’s rather wasteful and purposeless. Know how often I go back and re-read the books that I’ve bought and consumed? Rarely folks, so rarely in fact that if you were to express it as a percentage of the books I own vs. those I’ve gone back and taken off the dusty shelf to read again, you could argue that it was “in the noise.” (That’s statistician-talk.)

So, in a way, folding the corners of my pages to mark my spot as I read now makes me feel good. Who cares? Who cares if one day someone gets this very copy of this very book that I once read and desecrated? Say their friend buys it at my estate sale upon my death, and lends it to them… maybe they want to read “a classic,” or something. My folds won’t detract from the words on the page, won’t prevent them from enjoying the story – heck, at the worst they may serve as a point of confusion if this future-reader is, himself, a dogearer. But, thinking back to that disgust I once felt for the very person I’ve now become, I actually enjoy creasing that little corner; revel in my disrespect for the things I own. I mean, fuck that book, right? I’m going to buy it with money, I’m going to read it, and it’s going to gather dust in a bookcase until I die or my house catches fire or I sell or give it away. I’ll even unfold my last fold as I read through – no harm done, I care that much. So, each time I fold down one of those little corners and close the book shut to return to it later, I feel like I’m a little less materialistic, a little more “carefree.” Silly, ain’t it?

By jove, I think I’ve still got it. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Know what feature I want on my iPod? I want a way to have a living “smart” playlist which contains everything I’ve recently added to the device. I know, iTunes has this functionality in some capacity – but I, unless I just don’t know how to use it right, it doesn’t work the way I want. First off, realize that I’m one of those “fringe” users whose MP3 collection is larger than his iPod, I also don’t use iTunes to listen to music – so I have nothing it the “library” there – as I use the software only as a means to get tracks on my iPod. Also realize that 99% of what’s on my iPod is complete albums, I don’t typically do the one-song thing (although this the iPod itself has changed my longstanding usage model here to some degree). So, what I want is a “smart” playlist that creates a pointer to all the albums I’ve added in the last couple weeks – and I want it sortable by album, artist, song, etc. just like the standard iPod browsing menus. That’s right, I want a playlist, or perhaps subsection more accurately, that sorts just like the regular menu system but only contains stuff I’ve added in the last two weeks. That would be awesome, right? A little sub-menu showing only new stuff. I mean, it’s hard to keep up with what I’ve dragged onto there sometimes…

Still no Arcade Fire leak, just the same five tracks over and over again. Word is that promos are in the wild, so you’d think it would’ve made its way onto the information superhighway by now – but, alas, I wait still.

Goodnight.

Posted on

leak! leak! leak!


Wrote to paragraphs last night, gave up and never posted them. Here they go.

So everyone thinks my glass-lung dream has to do with smoking, eh? Not a bad interpretation, actually… and now that I think about it maybe it was smoke I was seeing fill the chambers, not “tinted breath” as I described it yesterday. Either way, it was one of those cool dreams that you actually get to remember – so I figured it meant something. Thankfully, and this is something I don’t say often, this work is dragging at work. This week, though, I’m glad it’s dragging… I need all the time I can get to pull everything I need together before Friday. I’m sitting on the couch now in my boxer shorts, and I swear I can smell my own ass… that, or these shorts were dirty when I put them on. That’s gross to me.

Tonight Sharaun and I had dinner with some long-time friends, I mean from-back-in-FL friends. They have a daughter (who I remember being born) who’s now in 2nd grade, and I got to talking about her about what kind of things she’s doing in school. Trying to think back, I remembered things like have to write what time it was on a drawing of an analog clock and counting little drawn quarters, dimes, and nickels to answer things like “how much money?” As we talked, I decided that I’d head into the garage and actually pull down the box of “David’s Old Stuff” my mom had given me a few years back. Sure enough, I found a math test I took in 2nd grade – and lo and behold: clocks and change. What a memory, huh? I love looking through that box, and someday if I get a working scanner I’d like to digitize and write about some of the cool things in there. I’m also glad my folks saved all that seemingly mundane stuff, it’s loads of fun to look at now – I’ll make sure and do the same for Keaton.

Know what I hate about every single iPod case I’ve tried? All the holes are either hard to get to, or, when easily accessible, made only to fit the standard iPod headphones and charger. That’s just dumb. Most decent headphones or 3.5mm jacks have thicker plugs than those skinny white iPod earbuds, so it’s just stupid not to give users a little more wiggle room if they decide, like me, that they hate the pain-inducing standard earbuds. And, “unauthorized” car charges and wall charges for the iPod are available on eBay for pennies on the dollar – and some are, not surprisingly, a little differently-sized than the OEM or licensed ones. Stupid for these case guys not to think about that. I should go into business making iPod cases… I wonder if there’s good money there. Hear that entrepreneurs?, now you know how to set your case apart from the rest – appeal to those with after-market and bootleg plug-ins. Easy as that.

Late today, two more tracks from the new Arcade Fire album leaked to the internets. Along with the three that already leaked, that makes five of eleven – nearly half the album. I swear each leaked track sounds better than the last. Even more exciting, along with the leaks, message boards and scene chatter was filled with rumors that the whole LP will be uploaded before the night’s end. Now, seeing as I’m writing this on Thursday night – I have the smallest hope that I might actually be listening to the new album on the way into work tomorrow. So here I am, alternating between writing the blog and pressing F5 on the three leakiest trackers I know. Write a sentence, F5, write a sentence, F5… c’mon Neon Bible… you can do it!

Goodnight.