-
Electronic Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might Be Giants
I couldn’t tell you how many trivia questions I have gotten right buy knowing that Istanbul use to be Constantinople thanks to the classic They Might Be Giants song. This electronic version of the song can be found on their new rarities album, Album Raises New and Troubling Questions.
-
Flashback Friday: Elvis Costello – “Sulky Girl”
Elvis Costello has been so prolific over the years, everybody probably has a favorite song by the hall of famer. I have many. My favorite Elvis album, Brutal Youth, came out in the early 90s—around the same time all my flashback videos are from. “Sulky Girl” was probably the biggest hit off of Brutal Youth. It’s such a great album that doesn’t have a single bad song on it.
-
What Your Toilet Paper Says About You
-
Go Broncos!
I never blog about sports. Mostly because sports talk and interviews bore me. It’s mostly just stating the obvious. I’m not a huge fan of any sport that isn’t football anyway. I haven’t seen a baseball game since ‘91 when the Twins won the World Series. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a basketball or hockey game. I guess I did watch a college basketball game a couple years ago when NDSU made the NCAA tournament.
Football is a different story. If there is an NFL game on, and I am anywhere near a TV, I am watching it. I don’t care who is playing, I am watching.
I may have mentioned my favorite team is the Denver Broncos. I’ve been a Broncos fan since ‘84, when I first started paying attention to football. This year there has been a lot of talk about their QB, Tim Tebow. He seems to be either loved or hated. I’m mixed on him. I cringe when ever he talks religion, but honestly, 99% of football players do it. It doesn’t bother me that much. They are football players. They obviously haven’t spent much time in science class, so I don’t hold it against them.
Tim Tebow is a good, hard working kid. The only question I have is his quarterbacking abilities. His style is unorthodox. His throwing accuracy isn’t that great. If anybody can improve themself it would be him though. I’m rooting for him. The one thing he has is the ability to win games. He is an amazing 5-1 as a starter, and has turned around the team. It probably has more to do with John Fox’s change in offense, and their improved defense, but like always, the QB gets more credit and blame than he should.
This weekend I get to see him in person. It will be the fourth Broncos games I have attended. My third in the Metrodome, and I saw them once at Mile High Stadium. It should be a good time. When I first bought tickets I didn’t think the Broncos would stand a chance, but the way both teams are playing now, I like the Broncos chance.
-
Super Mario Beads
-
Super Mario Bros.: The 8-Bit Opera
I’m a sucker for any Super Mario remix—even this one despite it being kind of annoying.
-
Flashback Friday: Matthew Sweet – “Ugly Truth Rock”
Altered Beast is such a great album. It would be my favorite Matthew Sweet album if Girlfriend wasn’t ever made. The cd was glued into my cd player for most of the 90s. “Ugly Truth Rock” was the first video off of Altered Beast. When I think of 90s music videos, I always think of that blue car driving around the desert. The video starts at the 1:18 mark. I couldn’t find a better quality version of the video, so you get a little bonus with a classic 120 Minutes intro by Lewis Largent and a little clip of a Matthew Sweet interview.
-
What I did on Thanksgiving
I was going to be lazy and not put up the Christmas lights this year, but it was so nice out, this is what I did yesterday.
-
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.
-
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?
