A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Sorry I missed Talk Like a Pirate Day, kids. I’ve been a bit busy. And sick.

Speaking of busy, we drove by a large poster tonight:

End the War Now!

Protest 10/27
11am
SF Civic Center

Not to quibble, but that’s not exactly “Now!” is it? I mean, I can see how “End the War a Few Weeks from Now!” lacks a certain urgency, but still… It must have been awkward to raise your hand in the meeting and say that you’d love to end the war, but with Columbus Indigenous People’s Day and Sweetest Day coming up, you really couldn’t fit it in until the end of the month.

Priorities, people.

:: :: :: ::

Seven words that haven’t stopped being fun to say: Boston Red Sox, American League East Champions.

:: :: :: ::

It’s not surprising that The Shepherd’s Dog is a fantastic record. What is surprising is that it’s my least favorite Iron & Wine LP to date. How did this happen? I think Josh Hurst nails it:

There’s a reason that all the reviews are talking about the production rather than the songs themselves. It’s partly because the production is so lavish, but it’s partly because it frequently overshadows the songs themselves. Listen to the album once, twice, even several times and you’ll be sure to remember little textural moments or production choices, but melodies are harder to recall. Each song comes forward with a different production gimmick, and so much stuff clutters the surface of these songs that the depth of the songs themselves is crowded out of the picture.

The album is an intricate joy to listen to, but I can’t understand why anyone would choose to obscure or filter Sam Beam’s voice. I’d sooner shave his beard.

:: :: :: ::

Looking at the calendar this month, I see that National Character Counts Week is coming up.

I can hardly wait to see what the President is going to do to top last year.

:: :: :: ::

Um, did someone just spam my post turning comment spam into poetry… with poetry?

:: :: :: ::

The last two books I’ve read have been Working for Yourself and Getting Things Done. Tonight, I start making my way through Tax Savvy for Small Business. And sometime in the next week, I buy my first copy of Quickbooks. Wheeeee!

I really hope this will all be worth it in the end.

:: :: :: ::

In other news, I like fire. And cameras with slow shutter speeds.

:: :: :: ::

Seven more words that should be fun to say for another week and a half: Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Downloadable on October 10.

:: :: :: ::

But wait a minute… to get “Down Is the New Up” and “4 Minute Warning” and some of the other new songs, you’re telling me that I have to buy the special “discbox” for 40 dollars? Well, that seems like a lot, but I guess I’d probably spring for it —

Sorry, what’s that you say? It’s not dollars, it’s Pounds?!?

Wow. You sure know how to take the fun out of those seven words.

*sigh*

3 Ripples Tags
berkeley | iron and wine | national character counts week | photos | radiohead | red sox | small business | torture | war

Sad Songs Tuned to Chords Strung Down Your Cheeks

Friday, August 10, 2007

It’s been a rough rollercoaster of a week. I don’t have a whole lot to report, but thanks for the thoughts, emails and prayers.

I’m getting the hell out of Dodge for the weekend, but I’ll leave you with my current favoritest thing:

This was already one of my favorite songs of all time. But wow. I’ve clearly been lied to by the Muppets.

And it’s a welcome change of pace to have something good bring tears to my eyes.

Make a Ripple Tags
music | videos | wilco | youtube

Down with G-O-D

Monday, August 6, 2007

Today was a shitty day. 

Terrible? Check. Horrible? Yep, that too. No good? No question. Very bad? Very true.

Thank goodness there was help waiting for me when I got home.

One of the fringe benefits of being a Christian is that I’ve somehow been chosen to receive “The Crossings Chronicle,” a periodic update from “The Book Club for Today’s Christian Family.” And this issue was just chock full of hope and joy.

Right on the cover, next to the smiling faces of Left Behind authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, was the promise that by joining the book club, I could “Get closer to God” and “save big!” Honestly, I’m not sure which of those promises was supposed to excite me more.

But seeing as how part of today’s shittiness involved me finding out that my job was more or less disappearing, it’s probably time to cut back on my “getting closer to God” budget. So, suddenly finding myself in the market for a little discount holiness, I turned the page....

As I did so, I was greeted by the smiling face of Max Lucado. (Christians sure are a smiley bunch, aren’t they?) And it was like Max had chosen to speak directly to me, for the description of his latest book, Every Day Deserves a Chance, began thusly:

No more bad days — ever!

Wow! I sure would’ve saved myself a lot of pain with the ow! and the hurting if I’d picked this book up earlier. Like, anytime before today.

If you’ve ever had “one of those days” — and let’s face it, everybody has — then you need to read Max Lucado’s uplifting look at how any day, no matter how bad, can be turned into a good day.

Looks like this is going to be one of those “turn my frown upside down” kind of programs. So… what’s the magic ingredient, Max? Positive thinking? Rainbows? Puppies and ice cream?

The key is to connect with God.

And save big!

And if you think you’ve heard that phrase before, just take a new look at “G-O-D”: Grace, Oversight and Direction — three specific things that believers are blessed with through their relationship with Jesus Christ.

Okay, hold on a minute, Max. This God of which you speak… this is the same God whose name was so holy that the ancient Jews would not dare utter it, eschewing the tetragrammaton for the safer Adonai, right? Um, does Patrem omnipotentem ring any bells?

Because that’s the God whose name you just turned into a self-help pneumonic device to sell books and make me feel bad for feeling bad.

You know what? I think I’ll pass on the 99¢ spirituality.

I like to think that my God is quite a bit bigger than your effable PowerPoint potentate. Even if it means that getting closer sometimes comes at a great cost.

And even if it means that shitty days hurt as much as this one did.

12 Ripples Tags
books | christianity | faith | max lucado

Two Thousand Words

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Clearly, the whole “I’m going to write again” thing didn’t exactly take off quite as easily as I’d hoped. So it’s probably best to start with some low-hanging fruit. And if there’s one universal truth about the blogosphere, it’s this: you just can’t go wrong with pictures of cats.

Fortunately for us, we recently got a new camera. As for our cats, well, they aren’t nearly as thrilled about this development as we are.

I think it’s safe to say that this is the first in a series.

5 Ripples Tags
cats | photos | two thousand words

Free as in Music

Sunday, July 15, 2007

The other day, I opened my feed reader for the first time in months and discovered that I had 24,000 unread posts. It almost made me crawl right back into my metaphorical hole.

So if I’m a little behind the curve, please forgive me.  I’m slowly catching up.  Right now, I’m about to discover when the iPhone gets released and I think Scooter Libby is about to go to jail.  I can’t wait to see how the past turns out, so please, nobody spoil the ending for me.

Anyhow, during my hiatus from RSSland, it turns out that I missed a whole bunch of free music. Here are a few recent links worth checking out, particularly the first one, which ostensibly expires July 16.

The Format - Dog Problems

This delightful album came out a year ago, but I only discovered it after Scott recommended it back in January. It’s been a mainstay in my playlists ever since. Dog Problems is eminently likeable, and in celebration of the one-year anniversary of the album, it’s free! Well, at least for another day. The being free part, that is. It’s likeable for many, many days beyond that, I promise you. So go to The Format’s site, sign up for their mailing list, and download away....

Various Artists - OK X

One-year anniversaries are nice and all, but ten-year anniversaries have got to be like ten times better. Particularly when we’re talking about the decennial of one of my favorite albums of all time: Radiohead’s OK Computer. In celebration, the fine folks at Stereogum have put together a pretty fantastic tribute album, with stellar efforts from Dave Bazan’s Black Cloud, My Brightest Diamond, Doveman and others. The highlight for me is Bazan’s “Let Down,” which is a much fuller and more interesting arrangement than the previous Pedro the Lion b-side. Did I mention that it was free? Well it is.

The National - Daytrotter Session

Boxer, the latest from The National, is one of the best albums in what has already been an incredible year of music. The band recently stopped by the Daytrotter studios to record four songs, including “Lucky You,” one of my favorite songs from 2003’s Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. Download all four luscious tracks for the low, low price of free. While you’re there, click around. There’s plenty more free goodness where that came from.

Spoon - “The Underdog”

Okay, so this isn’t a free download. But I can’t stop listening to this song. The newest Spoon album dropped on Tuesday, and iTunes tells me that I’ve already listened to this track some 28 times! Seriously, it’s like crack you can clap along to.

Here’s the video:


Oh, and you can dress them up like the Three Amigos if you want, but Van Morrison still wants his horn section back.

Update: I lied, “The Underdog” is available as a free download. Who loves you?

4 Ripples Tags
mp3 | music | music videos | radiohead | spoon | the format | the national

Who Left This Thing On?

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

I haven’t written since April, and yet I’m still paying the hosting bills. I know, I can’t explain it either.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had two people observe that I haven’t written anything since Vonnegut left us. Which is true, but not in a McLeanesque “The Day the Writing Died” black armband way. I’m not that clever.

Far from it, in fact. Truth be told, I’ve been in a creative slump for that long and then some. I haven’t been terribly good at my job, and I’ve been even worse as a writer. Not that I was ever particularly brilliant at either, but I’ve realized over the past few months just how much I rely on creative output to feel good about myself.

So… I think it’s time to sweep away some cobwebs and see if I can get even a dim reflection of my groove back.

I make no promises, save that I won’t go dark for another three months again.

4 Ripples Tags
site news

So It Goes

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Listen: One of the greatest American writers of the last century is no longer with us.

Billy was working on his second letter when the first letter was published. The second letter started out like this:

“The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

“When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes.’”

Slaughterhouse-Five, 1969

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.

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death | kurt vonnegut, jr.

San Francisco Values

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Front page, above the fold:

A City Hooked on Salmon

1 Ripple Tags
photos | salmon | san francisco chronicle

Naked!!

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

If the site looks different today, don’t worry, it isn’t broken.

It’s just CSS Naked Day 2007 — a day when web-standards-loving web designers take off their stylesheets and parade their nude html content for the world to see.

I won’t pretend that my code is the most semantic there is, and I’ve got a few validation errors that I’ve never bothered to fix. But it’s still pretty readable, no?

Update: Naked Day is now over. Obviously, the stylesheet’s got the site covered again.

2 Ripples Tags
css naked day | site news | web design

In Which I Have a Fantasy Involving Bush’s WHIP

Saturday, March 31, 2007

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but I’ve been the world’s boringest blogger lately.

I do feel a little bad about this since I know that a few of my friends have recently recommended this site to a few of their friends, not realizing just how badly I’ve lost my mojo.

So it goes, I guess.

Since I’m always looking for ways to improve, I think I’ve found a way to be even more boringester.... 

Writing about baseball.

It’s opening day, so I could bore you with my thoughts about how the Red Sox will fare this year. But that’s not nearly mindnumbing enough.

To really drive away my last few remaining readers, I need to aim higher. Yep, that’s right. We’re not just talking baseball here, but fantasy baseball.

Most of you have tuned out already, and that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction. For the one or two of you who are still interested, I’ve hidden the details of my first foray into the dark netherworld of fantasy baseball below the fold.

You can’t say I didn’t warn you…

What was that about a WHIP?

Wow. You must be either bored or a baseball fan. Or both.

First things first… I’ve never done fantasy baseball before, so I could be going about this all wrong. And I might very well lose enthusiasm for this within the first few weeks. We’ll see.

League One

The first league is an ESPN league that a friend from church roped me in to joining. It’s eight teams in a head-to-head format (which I don’t have a good feel for yet), and it has a few funky custom categories like fielding percentage, WHIP and holds. It was a live draft, which was a bit of an adventure.

Anyhow, here’s the team I’m starting the season with:

C - Ramon Hernandez
1B - Carlos Delgado
2B - Chase Utley
SS - Jimmy Rollins
3B - Garrett Atkins
OF - Manny Ramirez
OF - Adam Dunn
OF - Jeff Francoeur
UTIL - David Ortiz
Bench - Alex Rios (OF)
Bench - Willy Taveras (OF)
Bench - Lyle Overbay (1B)
Bench - Ty Wigginton (1B,2B,3B)

SP - Chris Carpenter
SP - Brandon Webb
SP - Dan Haren
SP - Brett Myers
SP - Dave Bush
RP - Jonathan Papelbon
RP - Chris Ray
RP - Akinori Otsuka
RP - Pat Neshek

DL - Eric Gagne

I really don’t know what to expect with this format, but I’m thrilled with my starting rotation (4 of the 5 are starting on opening day!) and psyched to have Manny, Papi, and Paps on the team.

League Two

As long as I was going to be following baseball for one league, I figured that adding a second wasn’t going to be too much additional work. So I joined an eight-team points league on Yahoo with some folks from the Arts and Faith board.

The tricky thing with this league is that there are a lot of point categories, and they’re weighted. The roster is also larger than the first, and there are tighter games/innings limits. The fun part so far has been that since it was an auto-draft, I’ve had to do some wheeling and dealing to balance my team out a bit. Anyhow, here’s the team:

C - Victor Martinez (via trade: Jeff Francoeur/Anibel Sanchez)
1B - Paul Konerko
2B - Chase Utley
SS - Miguel Tejada
3B - Garrett Atkins
IF - Joe Crede (3B)
OF - Matt Holliday
OF - Grady Sizemore
OF - Michael Cuddyer
OF - Nick Swisher
UTIL - Bill Hall (SS,3B, OF eventually)
Bench - Jason Varitek (C)
Bench - Lyle Overbay (1B)
Bench - Mike Lowell (3B)
Bench - Open J.D. Drew (OF)

SP - Roy Halladay (via trade: Michael Young)
SP - Ben Sheets
SP - Curt Schilling
SP - Cole Hamels
SP - Dave Bush
RP - Joe Nathan
RP - Jonathan Papelbon
Bench - Huston Street (RP)
Bench - Akinori Otsuka (RP)

It’s a nice outfield, I guess. I’m still sorting out my bench. Once the trades go through, I’ll probably pick up an extra outfielder, but I’m not sure yet.

I will say this: as awesome as my starting five were on the first team, I’ve managed to put together a complete staff of pitchers who do nothing but throw strikes. We’re talking 2006 numbers like 8.12 K/9, 1.7 BB/9 and a 4.8 K/BB ratio. That’s just a few strikes short of Santana territory. For the entire staff!

So that should be fun.

If you’ve read this far, you’re definitely a bored baseball fan. So… Do you see anything I’m missing on that second team that I should try to shore up with my bench?

And yes, this post was mostly an excuse to use that headline.

Play ball!

UPDATE (04-02): I’ve now filled the open spot on my bench with J.D. Drew.

2 Ripples Tags
baseball | fantasy baseball

Evidence That God Might Not Be Listening When We Pray “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”

Friday, March 23, 2007

Is there any other possible explanation for me discovering GodTube on a slow Friday afternoon?

Make a Ripple Tags
christianity | faith | godtube | videos | wacky christians

Mashaboom! Ahhhh!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

This works way better than it should… Feisty Stevens: The Zombies Are Inside Out (via Opus)

Make a Ripple Tags
feist | mashups | mp3 | music | sufjan stevens

Occupational Hazard

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Paula Poundstone says the reason why adults ask children what they want to be when they grow up is simple: they’re looking for ideas.

I guess that’s comforting. I’m 32, after all, and hell if I know.

Days like today, though, make me wish that I could be an astronaut. Or a thoracic surgeon. Or a sword swallower.

There are excellent reasons why I’m none of those things, chief among which is the fact that I’d be catastrophically bad at each of them.

All I’m saying is that it would be really nice to find an occupation someday where my clients won’t be tempted to think that they can do my job better than I can.

5 Ripples Tags
web design
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