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Happy Thanksgiving
I hope everybody in the US is having a happy Thanksgiving. My In-laws are in town, so not much computer time for me. I wish we were having our Thanksgiving dinner today, but we’re not having it until Saturday when more family can be here. Sadly I will be at work that day, so my only Thanksgiving dinner this year will be leftovers. At least I will get out of hanging with my family that day. I love my family, but I can only handle them for so long.
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What music service is for me?
It’s an exciting time for music online. They’re more ways to buy and consume music than ever. I’ve tried many of them, but I’m still on the fence with which one I’m going to use. For some people subscription services are perfect, but they’re not really for me. I paid for Spotify for a month, and it’s really cool, but sometimes I don’t know what I want to listen to, and I like to just browse my collection. It’s not as easy to do with Spotify, and many times when I knew what I wanted to listen to, it wasn’t on Spotify. If you’re more of a casual music fan, and listened to mostly popular stuff, Spotify might be for you. It’s not really for me.
The two services I’m really excited about are iTunes Match, and Google Music. I’ve been on Google Music since the first day the beta launched. It took me four months to get all my music up there with my slow ass Internet, but now that it’s up there it’s pretty cool. Like most Google products when they launch, It’s ugly looking and could use some improvement. I love the new music section in the Android Market. It will make it so easy for bands to put out their music themselves. Screw the record labels. On the Android Market they will make 70% profit. The one downside about Google Music is it’s not as good on iOS. There is a third party app that I have been using for a while to listen to my music, but it’s buggy and not perfect.
Monday when iTunes Match launched I started getting my music up into the iCloud. It’s still grinding away. I’m not sure what it’s really doing. After the first match it only matched 3000 songs, leaving me 13,000 to upload. Since then it’s timed out, and reset a bunch of time. Maybe it matched more, I don’t really know. It’s just grinding away, and will be done someday. I don’t blame iTunes though, I only get 500 Kbps up from my cable company. So far with what’s been uploaded, I really like the Apple solution. It’s nice to be able to delete all my music from my phone, yet I still have access to all of it. Their “streaming” isn’t really streaming; songs download as they play. That can be good and bad. It’s nice because you have instant, and offline access to the songs you listen to the most. The bad part is that it could start to fill your phone up, but you can easily delete songs on the iPhone now too.
For the different music services it will probably come down to whatever phone you have. Google Music will probably work best on Androids, and iCloud on iPhones. That’s not too surprising, but I’m going to keep my music in both camps. Once Google products become more mature, they are usually my products of choice. I use Google for my calendar, mail, and contact syncing. I don’t really care for any of the other iCloud products. It’s really exciting times. I’m glad I can finally have access to all my music in my pocket. It’s like we are living in the future. Where’s my flying car?
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The internet killed my video games
Back in the day I was a huge video game player. The other day I just realized I haven’t turned on the Xbox since January 1st of this year. My wife is the gamer in the house. She is always buying the latest games. Yesterday she bought the new Saints Row game. I saw Skyrim in the store, and wished I had the time to attempt to play it, but I know I don’t.
I guess it’s not that I don’t have the time, I just have other things that I would rather be doing, mostly wasting time on the internet and watching podcasts. I am so out-of-touch with current video games, I would probably be lost it I tried playing them. They are so much more complex then they were back in the day on my NES. I hardly ever play games on my iPhone or iPad either. I just would rather spend my time nowadays reading. Sometimes I miss the all-nighters I put in with my Nintendo. Now my all-nighters are spent reading news online. I feel I’m much more informed with what’s going on in the world, almost too much, but my video game playing has suffered. I guess I’m getting old, now get off my lawn.
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JoCo crazy
I got my autographed Jonathan Coulton cd today. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I already have the digital downloads, so I don’t even have to rip it. I guess it’s just proof that I buy things I don’t need just to support artists I like.
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Shorter days, more Jupiter viewing time
The days are quickly getting shorter and shorter. Many people hate this time of year, but I kind of like it. I love star gazing, and this time of the years give me more time to do it before it becomes too cold to be outside. I use to be able to find many constellations, but now that I live in a bigger city, I can’t really see much and have forgot most of them. Thankfully there are many iPhone apps to help me out now. Last night at work I had to head south of town for a bit, and it was great. I almost wish I lived more out of town, so I could see more stars.
One thing I’m really enjoying it watching Jupiter every night. It is currently in opposition to the Sun. Which means it rises when the Sun sets, and it visible all night as it rises in the east and sets in the west. It is real easy to spot. Because Venus isn’t currently visible, It’s the 2nd brightest thing in the sky at night after the Moon. Every night at work I see it in the east and I watch it move across the sky, and I see it in the west when I get home from work. I wish I had some binoculars or a telescope. It would be cool to try and see some of Jupiter’s Moons.
Many people never look into the sky at night. That’s the first thing I do when I walk out at night. I can’t name a ton of stars, but I can find Betelgeuse and Rigel in my buddy Orion, and Polaris is another no brainer to find. If you’re out and about at night this month, look up and try and find Jupiter. Then just think that that little speck of light is 369.8 million miles away, and it would take 1321.3 earths to fill up the volume of Jupiter. Our Solar System, and the Universe is filled with amazing and beautiful stuff that most people take for granted.
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Anybody else notice Jupiter in the sky?
Now that the days are getting shorter, it’s always dark when I’m going to work in the morning. Our house faces south, so all winter long I will be greeted by Orion every morning when I walk out the door.
About a week or so ago I noticed a really bright star just a bit to the west of Orion. It looked like it was close to the ecliptic, so there was a good chance that it was a planet. I just wasn’t sure which one. So like anything, when I’m curious about it I look it up. I have many star map apps on my phone, so when I got to work I looked it up, and it was Jupiter. So for the past week, every morning when I have been greeted by Orion, I have also said hello to Jupiter.
Today on Universe Today, they have an article about that very bright star in the sky that is Jupiter. So if you’re up early every day like I am, look up and try to find Jupiter.
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My online backups
In January I made a New Year’s resolution to get my computers backed up online. I’ve always been good about backups, but they were always kept local except for my pictures, which I burn to DVD and take a copy to work. There are many different online backup options these days, from Carbonite, Mozy, DropBox, and CrashPlan.I chose CrashPlan for four reasons. They have unlimited storage, I can backup multiple computers, they are affordable, and I can use their software to backup to multiple locations. That last reason is probably my favorite. All I need is the CrashPlan software running, and it will keep my systems backed up to both my NAS, and the CrashPlan servers. No need to run other backup software for my multiple backups.
I started my backups in January and they were finally finished this week. It took nine months of continuously backing up to get everything up there, but now they are there, so it’s only incremental backups from here on. They also just recently released an iPhone app too. So now I have access to all my files from my phone too. It’s pretty sweet. I’m sure I will find many uses for it.
I’m pretty anal about my backups, and for that reason I have never lost a file. I’ve had a few hard drives die, and it’s never been much of a problem because of my backups. I hate it when I hear my family and friends losing stuff because they don’t have proper backups. Storage is so cheap these days. There is no reason you shouldn’t have multiple backups of all your important files.
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What do you want done with your body?
Yesterday at lunch somehow we ended up talking about cadavers. Our new chemist was talking about all the body parts they had in the freezer at his old job. They had big sheets of skin, foreheads, even penises in the freezer.
That got me thinking about what I want done with my body after I don’t need it any longer. It’s actually something I think about quite often after reading Stiff, by Mary Roach. A great book I might add. I Honestly I don’t really care what is done with my body. My family will do whatever they want with it. It’s not like I would ever know. Personally, as creepy as it sounds, I would prefer to have my body donated to science, after of course all the usably organs are donated. I doubt that will happen because I’m sure my family wouldn’t want to do that, and my first choice would be whatever my family want.
I find it kind of wasteful to just burn the body, and even more wasteful to burry it and use up the limited land space we have here on earth. Maybe by the time I die they will be able to shoot my body into outer space. How fitting would it be for the molecules that make up my body to be put back where they came from? Call me weird, but my ultimate wish would be to have scientists and students learn all they can, and then have my leftover parts launched into the Sun. Who knows, maybe someday that will be my penis in the freezer that will someday have it’s final resting place on the Sun.
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10 years ago
So I was just thinking back to what I was doing ten years ago today. So much has changed, but many things have stayed the same. I’m driving the same truck, working the same job with pretty much the same people. Today is one of those days where I wish I saved my blog archives from back then. Back then blogging was new and exciting. I don’t even remember if I blogged about the tragedies of September 11th, or if I just went silent. In September of 2001 I had been blogging for only a year. I started blogging sometime around August of 2000, shortly after getting broadband internet in July. I’m pretty sure I was still on blogger back in those days.
News moved so much slower back in those days. There was no Twitter or Facebook. There was no Google Reader as RSS was just in it’s infancy. There was no podcasting, no YouTube, and very little videos online. TV and radio were the best and fastest ways to get your news. I often wonder what it would be like if such a tragedy were to happen today.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was bummed out that day because one of my favorite Bronco players, Ed McCaffrey broke his leg the night before on Monday Night Football. Suddenly that seemed so insignificant. When the first plane hit the reports were sketchy. At first it sounded like it was just a freak accident buy a small plane. Once the second plane hit, the world was changed forever. It was such an eerie time. After the four planes went down we were just waiting to hear if there were going to be more. We couldn’t be sure it was over until all planes were grounded. For months after that, I couldn’t look at a flying plane the same.
The only positive thing that came out of that was how united our country became. Most of the political bickering came to an end. Too bad that didn’t last long, and may even became worse. The way politics has become is sickening. They are all about protecting the big corporations, and trying to sabotaging the other party to help with their own re-election. If only both of the parties could look at the facts and work together to decided what’s right for the people. Yeah, I guess I’m a dreamer.
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Two State Fairs, and a Valley Fair
I’m finally recovering from the weekend in the Cities. Saturday we went to the Minnesota State Fair. We ate way to much junk food on a stick. Like $60 worth of junk food on a stick. It was only my second time ever going, and I will totally be going back if they bring some more good bands. Saturday night we saw probably my two favorite bands, Motion City Soundtrack, and Weezer. Both of them were amazing. Motion City even played one of our favorite songs, “Capital H”. They didn’t play that song the last three time we have seen them, so it was nice to hear it again. Weezer is always great, but this was the first time I was able to see them from the front row. Rivers came into the crowd a bit, and my Wife was able to touch him. It was pretty cool being that close. I can’t wait to catch both these bands again.After Motion City was done their drummer, Tony Thaxton came out and took a panoramic picture of the crowd. Do you see me there in the front row? No, you can’t really see me because it’s too dark, but I was there.
On Sunday we went to Valley Fair. I’m not a big fan of amusement parks and ride, but I still had fun. I don’t find rides very much fun, but I still manage to ride them all.
On Monday we were back at the State Fair for some more junk food on a stick and to see Maroon 5 and Train. Originally I wasn’t going to go, but my Sister-in-law backed out, so I got stuck going. I had no idea who Maroon 5 even was. They just aren’t my type of music. I thought they were pretty bad, and probably responsible for half the crappy music that is on the radio these days. I’ve see Train many times, and they are usually pretty good, but I was disappointed this time. They just seemed to waste a lot of time, and didn’t play a lot of the songs I like.
We drove straight home from the concert, and got home around 4:00 AM, so today has been sleep and catch up day.
