Strangely Not Nerdy

I'm not sure this adds up. But I was honest. And it's official -- JQ is nerdier than me.

Running Strong

Despite the title, this post is not about running. It is, in fact, about my iPod.

Recall that in March of 2006 my iPod died. Completely. Recall as well that in July of 2006 I brought it back from the grave after my inner geek vanquished my inner fear of "making it worse" by installing a new hard drive.

I have found that I do not appreciate the things I have on a daily basis. Rather, it's only when they are gone that I notice them at all.

So I'd just like to say that my iPod -- with it's new name and new-ish hard drive -- continues to work flawlessly. I use it almost every day at work. It plays books and music (no video but I'm usually watching video at work anyway). And for that, I am thankful.

Yeah, that's it.

More Music From the Bedroom

Not my bedroom (fortunately for you). I found a guy from New York who's actually trying to write music full time. And if that seems crazy, consider this: he decided to write a song a week for an entire year...and succeeded. Check out his songs page and listen to the following in this order (you can listen to any track on the page...for free!):

1. Code Monkey
2. Re Your Brains
3. Stroller Town
4. My Monkey
5. Bad World One
6. Creepy Doll
7. Not About You

If you are feeling like some Christmas music, I highly recommend:

8. Chiron Beta Prime

New Favorite Song

If I had to guess, I'd say that most of the songs I listen to cost a pretty penny to produce. Take into account studio time, engineering fees, instruments and electronics, stuff like that. I'm not even going to get into marketing or what mainstream artists get paid. That's still a lot of money, probably in the tens of thousands if not much more.

Then there's guys like Jordan Seavers who wrote a song called Robot Baby for Songfight -- a weekly contest where a random title is offered up and anyone can write, record, and submit their musical interpretation of that title. Sometimes it's rock, sometimes rap, sometimes experimental shlock. But it's usually recorded in a bedroom...and all the work that goes into it happens over the course of one week. Most of the time I can't sample more than five tracks because, well, these things were produced in a week and, frankly, most wanna be rock stars are wanna be's for a reason.

But every once in a while...

It's worth noting that my other bedroom rocker love Brad Sucks was once a Songfighter himself. All worth a listen.

Art - 1:100 Scale

This is bizarre and fascinating and I can't stop looking at the site.

The tagline: "Little hand-painted people, left in London to fend for themselves."

Kinda makes you want to take a closer look at the world around you. Just in case.

At the Mall

JQ grabs my arm and points emphatically at a mannequin in the window of a clothing store.

JQ: Wait. Stop. What do you think of when you see that?
JB: Hooker.
JQ: Yep.

Pause.

JQ: Can we go in?

Virtual Blight

Has anyone else noticed that Amazon.com is looking more and more like a warehouse store with concrete floors and pallettes of merchandise that are poorly labelled? Instead of showing a nice picture with a cleary marked price and a description below, you get a list of prices (for new or used products), several pictures uploaded by customers in addition to the original, shipping options (do you want your item TOMORROW?), and a bunch of data that only a computer could love.

I like information. I'm a research fiend when it comes to shopping. But I also like that infromation parcelled out to me in manageable bits. And aesthetics go a long way to making me feel comfortable about what I'm buying. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be shopping at Amazon. I'd be shopping at some no-name website with great prices but no contact info and based somewhere in Russia judging from the misspellings.

All I'm saying is that Amazon needs to consider a face-lift, like the kind all those 80s strip malls are getting now. Give me some faux slate brick and foot-wide Mediterranian-style balconies (that can't actually hold any people). Sand down the stucco and make it look hand-trowled. Plant some tiny trees that won't possibly provide any shade until it's time for the next re-design.

Seriously, Amazon. You're looking kinda trashy.