Feeling good this morning, I decided to crank up the tunes as I got ready for work. I so love the sexy vibe of this track.
June 2009
Music.
So I have been spending a little more time on my Ubuntu computer than on my Mac lately. I have been in “discovery geek” phase this week, trying out different things in Linux and seeing how the whole computing experience works out for a typical user on a computer, but using Linux instead of Windows or a Mac.
For the last 24 hours I have been concentrating on music: how to purchase it, how to organise it and how to listen to it. The program of choice, thus far, is Rhythmbox, which is installed by default when you install the latest version of Ubuntu (which is currently 9.04 or ‘Jaunty’). Rhythmbox has a comfortable interface and is quite intuitive. Mind you, it’s not like iTunes or the Zune interface, Rhythmbox is mostly a player but it allows you to do some purchasing and listening to internet based radio station. Overall, I enjoy the experience very much.
Because of the closed nature of all things Apple, I am unable to manage music on my iPhone from Rhythmbox and that’s okay because frankly I find plugging and unplugging the iPhone from the stereo everytime I get in or out of the car to be annoying. Add to the fact that the Acura has no Aux input built into the otherwise spectacular sound system and am forced to use a cassette adapter instead and you’ll know why I’m not too keen on using an iPhone or iPod in the car. So I have stepped back a few years in time and have begun burning CDs again.
The sound system was definitely designed for the CD player and not the cassette adapter I was using for the iPhone.
I wonder if the average consumer is stepping back in their expectations and ultimately settling for a mediocre aural experience in their vehicle now all in the name of technology. Granted, it’s quite convenient to carry your entire music library on an iPod (or any MP3 player for that matter) and dial up whatever track your heart desires, but if all you can hear from the track you’re listening to is the mid-range portion of the audio then what’s the sense of doing that?
Granted, burning CDs is not as ecofriendly as using an MP3 player. I stand labeled as a sinner in that department. But my goodness, the difference in the quality of the audio from my stereo is quite surprising.
I’m also enjoying music that I want to enjoy versus music that I _need_ to enjoy these days. Not being a regular club DJ anymore is a good thing, I no longer have to keep on top of the latest music trends, I can enjoy the music that I want to listen to and not worry about anyone else that might want to listen to my CDs. I’m not trying to entertain anyone, I’m just being entertained on my own terms.
I like that.
In case you’re wondering, I’m enjoying the likes of Deadmau5 these days and am listening to his album “Random Album Title”. I’m not big on lyrics and his music fits the bill, and my current music tastes, quite nicely.
Motivation.
Earl went out to dinner with business associates today (and can you believe that neither Larry nor Louise invited me to join them! Well!) so when I got home from work I decided to throw on the rollerblades and hit the canal trails.
I like rollerblading very much though I have to admit that I’m not super good at it. I frighten folks including small children with my “barely maintaining balance” stance, but for the most part I am able to get from point A to point B and back without breaking, scraping or jarring any random body part. I like to remain intact after working out. I was able to get about 5 km of rollerblading in before deciding I had met my quota for the day and heading home. It was a good feeling. My legs were a little trembly on the drive home but overall I was feeling the endorphin high.
Motivated by the rush of good vibes I was feeling from the much needed exercise, I decided to spruce up my bike a little bit by ordering new pedals, cleats and cycling shoes. I found a really good deal online and though there is some assembly required I figure that I’ll be good to go when the package arrives at the end of the week. The original shoes, cleats and pedals lasted for about 3000 miles (and I loved them very much); I’m figuring these will last for at least that distance as I did go for a higher caliber of equipment. I’ll be good to go when I go cycling with Thom later in the season.
I have no idea why I rollerblade in kilometers and pedal in miles.
Whilst rollerblading today a woman commented on my t-shirt; I was wearing one of my favourite workout shirts, a leftover from the radio station I used to work at. The station went off the air in 2001 so there’s probably not that many shirts left out in the public (though we handed out around 2000 or so during the run of the station). She said “I remember that station!” I like to hear that because it makes me feel like I made some sort of impression somewhere along the way and it’s a good way to stroke my ego. A couple of weeks ago Earl and Jamie and I were shopping at Old Navy and the clerk said “Didn’t you use to be on the radio?” Earl rolled his eyes as my ego was stroked and I purred.
There are many ways to motivate me.
Discovery.
With nearly eight years of this blog under my belt, I have discovered something very interesting. If I haven’t written a meaningful blog entry by 8 o’clock, I’m not going to blog about anything meaningful, unless of course I get some sort of brainstorm whilst lying in bed and then get back up and write about it.
So basically tonight I am blogging about not blogging. And that’s okay.
By the way, Apple had a big keynote speech today. You can turn just about anywhere on the internet and read about it. I’ll tell you what you need to know: Apple announced some pretty cool (but not earth shattering) things today and AT&T as the network provider for the U.S. sucks big time.
That’s all you need to know.
Oh, in the photo above, you’ll notice that my allergies to all things nature related have kicked in. I’m not sniffly or anything, my eye is just wonky. A few drops before bed and I’ll be as good as new and be able to see better than Steve Austin.
Mayfair Diner.
This morning we stopped at the Mayfair Diner before heading back to Central New York. Earl and the Cubster opted to order breakfast, since it was 10:30 a.m. and all, but I decided on a turkey burger from the lunch menu. Keeping with the healthy theme I skipped the fries and went for a 70 calories bag of chips.
Eating in a diner such as these is always a good experience for me and nothing can really replicate it, no matter how hard we may try. Fast food joints are way too fast (and usually populated with surly folks behind the counter) and the chain sit-down restaurants are too generic. That’s why Earl and I try to eat at local places when we travel.
Real food at real prices with real people.
Two thumbs up for the Mayfair Diner on Frankford Ave. in Philadelphia. And the turkey burgers are huge and delicious.
Razor And Tie.
So last night while we were watching “Titanic” (with limited commercial interruption), Razor and Tie Records advertised one of their latest offerings, a 4-CD collection of pop tunes from the 1970s. The songs they listed on this collection were titles I remember hearing from the back seat of my Dad’s ’71 Heavy Chevy while listening to 62 WHEN. The CD set was notably devoid of disco tracks and seemed to focus on what I call “AM Gold” records.
One track featured on the collection is “Lotta Love” by Nicolette Larson. I have a remix of this track from the “What Is Hip? The Remix Project” on my iPhone that I listen to once in a while, I had forgotten how much I loved the original version, especially the 12-inch extended mix that was released on vinyl back when the original was popular. The song is relatively simple but one that I find enjoyable nonetheless.
I was a little surprised to see a CD offering advertised on television a la the days of K-Tel, but I really liked what I saw and am considering looking into buying a downloadable version of the CD set1. I hope to find that available online when we get back home2.
What I like about the “AM Gold” music is that the instruments are real, the vocalists are really on pitch without a technological assist and more importantly, they are not trying to wow a judgmental audience with an attempt at Mariah-like mediocrity.
As a club and freelance DJ I can easily entertain the masses by playing the latest house tracks with a smattering of disco and 80s classics thrown into my mix, but to be honest I can easily shun that for the stuff such as what we featured on the Razor and Tie collection.
When it comes to pop music I am happiest listening to what I heard from the back seat of my Dad’s Heavy Chevy.
1 Back in the late 1990s I was very guilty of the whole Napster thing, especially when I was looking for music for the radio station I used to program. I fully believe that people should pay a fair price for their music, and once purchased, be able to do whatever they wish with that track. I avoid ‘crippled’ tracks laden with DRM, but I will certainly pay a fee for songs that I can enjoy on multiple devices. I make every effort possible to obtain a track legally.
2 This is the second version of this blog entry. I tried writing it on my iPhone from the back seat of the Durango as we make our way up the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but when I hit “save”, my iPhone and/or the WordPress app crashed, taking the brilliance of my original draft along with it. I will be looking into finding this collection for download when I have internet access when we get home, as naturally Apple doesn’t let us pair the iPhone with our computer so that we can use the 3G on the phone for our computer’s network access. I find this irritating.
Philadelphia, Pa.
So I am sitting on our balcony at Embassy Suites in Center City Philadelphia. The hotel is right on the Ben Franklin Parkway. Our view is the picture you see up there. I took the photo yesterday.
Earl, Jamie and I are in town for the weekend, we’ll be heading back up home in a few hours. Earl and I visited with his family yesterday. I haven’t seen anyone since New Year’s, it was good to see everyone. Jamie visited with some friends and rode his bike around the city while we were doing the suburb thing with the family. The day was quite enjoyable.
As a quick aside, I don’t know how the fine folks of this area deal with driving the Schuykill (Interstate 76) on a daily basis as it’s a clogged mess of frustration. I was posting photos from my iPhone to my Facebook account whilst sitting in traffic. If you were following that, you will know that:
“Whomever thought the Schuykill was a good idea should be flogged.”
“I’d rather drive on 128 around Boston.”
and
“God I miss the 401” (referring to Toronto. At 18 lanes at it’s widest point, the 401 is busiest freeway in North America)
And referring to the Ben Franklin Parkway, “I don’t drive across your park, don’t have a festival in my street. M’kay?” I had to explain to Earl that “M’kay” was a sarcastic was of saying okay. He didn’t know. I’m vague like that.
Anyways, after we got back to Center City we went out to dinner at an Irish Pub called “Moriarty’s”. I may have mentioned before that I enjoy a good Irish Pub.
After dinner we went for a walk around the gayborhood. One of the beautiful things about Philadelphia is the small residential streets in Center City; I know the houses are quite expensive but when you stand on one of these streets you hear hardly any noise from the hustle and the bustle of the city. Now that is an environment that I could definitely live in.
We got back to the hotel room a little after 10 and decided to watch a movie; “Titanic” was on so we watched that. I still think it’s one of the better movies out there; I haven’t seen it in a long time and I have to admit I found the green screen effects a little startling. I guess I never noticed how far we’ve come in the past 10 years or so in that department. It didn’t detract from the movie though, and that’s what’s most important.
After “Titanic” it was time for bed. Embassy Suites provides robes and slippers for our furry friends. I think it’s cute.
Fun.
Okay, my dear friend Shirley sent me a bunch of photos. I have to admit, we were having fun at the Saranac last night.
This is Ryan, Shirley and me.
In Moderation.
Earl and I had pretty much decided that we weren’t going to go to Saranac Thursdays for the most part this summer. While the activity is enjoyable, it also chews up a Thursday night and quite a few brain cells at the same time. The supper afterwards invariably is too big and then we end up feeling lethargic the next day.
Guess where we ended up last night.
Rumour had it that a former co-worker was in town for the weekend and would be out and about so we decided to head down and join the fun. Moderation is the key. I cut my beer consumption in half (and still had whacky dreams during the night) and we cut our food consumption down at Zebb’s afterwards. Hopefully I was only half as silly and/or obnoxious.
I also got to chat with my friend Christine (another former co-worker), who is now making a go at it with an internet based business: On Location Vacations. I find this to be wicked cool. She’s writing for other sites as well; quite impressive. I have always been impressed with Christine.
Earl took a couple of photos using our friend Shirley’s camera, but I don’t know that I’ll get to see them. Apparently one of the photos made Shirley blush. I’ll see if I can convince her to share with the class.
I think we’ll end up at Saranac Thursdays again during the summer, but judging by the way I feel today I’ll probably stick to bottled water while hanging out with my friends.
All in all it was a good night with a little lesson thrown in for good measure: moderation is the key.
Mimicry.
Once in a while I use my blog as a therapy session. Okay, maybe more than once in a while I indulge myself this way but it’s a lot cheaper than paying someone, so instead of chewing about it I invite you to sit down on the couch with me. If you’re bored with this entry (which is kind of random in it’s construct) then I invite you to use a search engine to find something more engaging. There’s plenty out there.
At nearly 41 years old you’d think that by now I have this whole life thing pretty much down pat and I’d be enjoying myself. The latter is true, I’m enjoying life very much these days but as far as life goes, I still feel like a kid that’s trying to find his groove from time to time. There will be times that I see something, anything in a person and I ponder it and perhaps try it on for a bit, incorporating whatever it was I saw in that person into my own life to see if it works for me. I think this is due to the fact that I am always looking for approval of some sort and I figure that if the original person carries that trait or whatever off successfully then I should be able to do that as well. As far as I can tell, this carries about an 80 percent success rate. I can do better.
That’s one thing that I’m always trying to do: do better. I am always looking to better myself and better my situation. I figure if you sit stagnant then quite frankly why bother living at all.
If anyone were to identify a superpower in me it would probably be mimicry. That’s how I learned my broadcasting skills in radio, I’d listen to other stations, hear how they did it and then do the same. That is how I’ve made technology decisions in the past: if program X works well on Mac Y for user Z, then it’s going to work well for me. I’ve adapted the skill to all sorts of situations: if bozo B is fired up about subject A, then there must be something to it and perhaps I should be fired up too. Though my personality trait is to be a loner and hardly a follower, this approach is exactly what I’ve been doing. It was during my drive home from Toronto this past weekend that I realised that’s what’s wrong: I’m trying to use the skills of a follower in concert with the personality traits of a loner and more importantly I’ve been doing that a lot in the past 18 to 24 months.
Once I came to this realisation, as I watched the trees go by and the black pavement pass underneath me, I felt like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. It was a defining moment in my life and I have felt immensely better ever since.
When I returned to work yesterday I sat down and cheerfully went about my duties and I was more productive yesterday (and today) than I have been in weeks. My feelings on various topics ranging from politics to interpersonal relationships to money to being gay to being out to health care all suddenly felt _aligned_. I have commented before that I don’t fit in the crowd that’s looking at the big picture. I’m not looking at a particular corner, I’m not looking at a particular colour in the big picture, I’m often not even looking at the same picture that everyone else is.
I have been trying to take photographs as I brush up and improve upon my photography skills. I go to post them and become hesitant as I realise that people may find them boring. Folks take pictures of cityscapes and flowers and people and all sorts of things and the crowd oohs and aahs over the display of an amazing talent. I worry that my pictures of powerlines and road signs and lake shores and men shaving and just random moments of life are going to bore people, so I invariably end up not posting them. I enjoy them but who else would? Well, I don’t care anymore, probably just as much as I don’t care about the amount of readers I have of my blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I have made many friends and connected with many people through my blog. I cherish my readers and value what they have to say. But am I trying to amp up readership? Nah. There’s others in _that_ big picture that are doing that.
For the first time in a long time, I feel a sense of identity. MY identity. And quite frankly, I don’t feel that I’m all that different from the happy-go-lucky guy I was five, ten or twenty years ago. But now I’m happier than before because of one simple fact.
I’m just me.
