Steinbeck on Random — 5.19.06

May 19th, 2006

Officially, this is the first Steinbeck on Random Friday that I’ve been able to experience with my new Steinbeck – Steinbeck II, in all actuality – and I’m pretty excited to see what My Little Robot spits out at me.

See, I had roughly 4,800 songs on Steinbeck O.G. Now, it’s filled with 6,008 pieces of music (that’s a 25% increase in tracks!), including my first two iTunes-purchased selections: The Postal Service’s “Against All Odds,” and The Arcade Fire’s “Cold Wind.”

“Against All Odds” is exactly what it sounds like – a cover of Phil Collins’ hit song. It’s strangely addictive, capable of being listened too hundreds of times without growing old and tired. “Cold Wind” is from the soundtrack of Six Feet Under and is one of my favorite The Arcade Fire songs.

Both were pretty heavy on Left Of Center (Sirius 26) rotation last summer, but they’ve disappeared since then. And since I couldn’t find either song anywhere, I was forced to actually pay $1.05 (post tax) each for them. I’m not complaining – they’re great songs. Now I just need to buy Ben Folds’ cover of “Bitches Ain’t Shit” and I’ll be set.

So with that, let’s shuffle the songs.

1. Bad Religion – “We’re Only Gonna Die”
80-85

The oldest Bad Religion song I still remember. I remember purchasing this album for purely archival purposes when I was a big Bad Religion fan – how could I be a big fan if I didn’t have al of the albums? “We’re Only Gonna Die” was one of the well-known songs from that era, and was one of two 80-85 songs featured on their greatest hits album All Ages. That’s how I ended up with it on my iPod again. And it’s still pretty good.

2. The Soundtrack of our Lives – “Ten Years Ahead”
Behind the Music

This is one of the new songs – not on Steinbeck I, but showing up in all of its glory on V.2. It’s short, and it’s kind of wanky, and it’s not one of The Soundtrack of our Lives’ best. But it still sounds like them, and I love Soundtrack’s sound – they sound a thousand times more polished and smart than many other bands in their genre – that nearly Brit-pop style of American rock.

3. A Tribe Called Quest – “Award Tour”
The Anthology

From their greatest hits album, this is my favorite A Tribe Called Quest song. Originally, it was from Midnight Marauders, and it was one of the Top-100 songs. From that review: “The first hip-hop song I embraced after the gangster rap phenomenon. Tribe sounds very dated, especially next to the more modern indie-rap sounds of Jurassic Five, but it’s a classic sound that is always welcome.” Thanks, Misha – this is one of the things I still hold from our friendship.

4. Pearl Jam – “Nothingman”
Vitalogy

This is really funny – I’ve kind of been on a Pearl Jam revival, remembering how much I liked them and discovering how welcome they are whenever they show up on the ‘Pod. I mean, this is pure nostalgia for me, and (maybe I’m getting old, but) I like them. A lot.

What’s even funnier is that I asked everyone at work to submit the most influential album in his or her life along with the reasons why that album was still relevant. One person mentioned this song specifically. Neat. It all comes full circle.

Of course, this is one of the woeful, depressing sounding songs – not to be confused with “Better Man,” from the same album.

5. The Postal Service – “Sleeping In”
Give Up

This is, unfortunately, not the song I purchased. (How cool would that have been?) A song about a dream – though, a weird dream about knowing who shot John F. Kennedy.

Hearing this song reminds me of how Death Cab For Cutie (Ben Giddard of The Postal Service fronts that band as well) has become so wussy – even more than before. They used to be a cool, unique sounding indie-rock band that was just close enough to breaking into the mainstream to make them edgy. They weren’t overproduced and they had that Northwest U.S. indie feel that Built to Spill, 764-Hero and Modest Mouse have taken to the airwaves.

Now, though, they’re quickly taking the Jimmy Eat World path – a great band that is slowly reverting to a more “so what?” style of music; a little boring, a little trite. And it’s too bad, because I really really liked We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes – the first Death Cab CD I’d ever bought. That new one, Plans? Feh. Or maybe I mean yawn.

6. Coldplay – “Bigger Stronger”
The Blue Room EP

And Steinbeck responds to my criticism of Death Cab going mainstream and losing their original sound by reminding me that I own every single Coldplay album that’s been released to the mass market. Thanks for bringing me back down to earth, you little jerk.

This song is one of my favorites, from an older EP.

7. R.E.M. – “Hope”
Up

R.E.M. minus Bill Berry equals lots of drum machine. At least, on this album, which I believe was the first they recorded after Berry left. Some of the songs on this album are great – “Walk Unafraid,” “At My Most Beautiful” – and I’m not saying this song isn’t good, but it’s always sounded like something from a soundtrack or a B-side. It’s like a The Postal Service (third mention, friends) version of a Death Cab song – lots of computers, but the same voice and structure.

I do like the lyrics to the song a lot, though – much more than a lot of R.E.M.’s stuff. “But you’re questioning the sciences and your questioning religion. You’re looking like an idiot and you don’t even care.”

8. Ben Folds Five – “Philosophy”
Ben Folds Five

Another Top-100 selection: “But it’s really not that you can’t see the forest for the trees/You never been out in the woods alone.”

Yeah, I still like Ben Folds Five. They’re great.

9. The Who – “I Can See For Miles”
Who’s Better, Who’s Best

Do you want to know the truth?

I stole this CD from the KSSU music library.

It’s true. Many years ago, when I would buy and sell CDs without any rhyme or reason, I possessed The Who’s 30 Years of Maximum R&B – a box set that spanned their entire career. It was a very good box set, especially for a kid like myself who hadn’t really been exposed to The Who any more than the local classic rock radio station allowed me.

But, of course, I sold it for a high price, since it was hard to come by. In fact, since I had purchased it with my Best Buy discount, I may have only lost $5 on the entire deal. I then longed for The Who, and I didn’t have any of their music anymore. So I stole this – a disk without a case, without cover art and with a layer of dust – from the “radio station” I worked at. A radio station that didn’t get new music and wasn’t even broadcast over the radio waves.

Boy, what a joke KSSU was.

10. Atmosphere – “Cuando Limpia el Humo”
Overcast!

I don’t know this song very well. But I like it. Sorry, I’ve got nothing more to say about it.


Comments: 3

Issues Considered: Music, Steinbeck on Random

Random Links – 05.18.06

May 18th, 2006

I’m still around – and I’ve got links burning a hole in my pocket. That’s right! Random Links is back! This post has been in the making for over a week now. I found three links I wanted to convey, but as I procrastinated, I found more and more to add. So now, you’re getting seven hot-licious links, all of them random.

One thing I’ve found since becoming a copywriter is that there are a lot of blogs about advertising. A lot. And many of them deal with the creative side of the business. I subscribe to all of them, and at work I have a special aggregator for just advertising blogs – I figure, it’s work related, so I don’t mind looking at them when I’ve created unbillable time by clearing my desk of all work.

This leads to me finding a lot of advertising related info. So you’ll have to bear with me – it’s all good.

- – - -

First, I ran across the website for The Raconteurs, a band that is made up of Jack White (of The White Stripes) and three people I’ve never heard of. I’ll admit – I actually like The White Stripes quite a lot. And from what I’ve heard of The Raconteurs, I like them as well.

What I like even more than their music, however, is their website. Go see it now: The Raconteurs.

It’s set up like an old green hued computer, complete with “one-touch letter pressing navigation.” Once you’re past the home page, your mouse won’t do much.

It’s my favorite site – the site of the month, if you will.

- – - -

Ever wonder where your grocery lists go when you lose them at the store?

Chances are they go to GroceryLists.org.

According to their site:

This is the world’s largest online collection of found grocery lists. More than 1,000 have been posted here and we have a lot more yet to be uploaded. And there is a book in the works. We rule. Please enjoy yourself and feel free to contribute your found lists — or one of your own.

My favorite is this one: a list that includes only a “hatchet and sheath,” written on a church envelope.

- – - -

In honor of the first screenshots of Madden 2007, here’s a quick history of how far we’ve come since Atari Football.

- – - -

Wallace and Gromit would be proud of this perfume.

First, Play-Doh creates their own perfume in honor of their 50th birthday. Not wanting to be outdone, Stilton cheese makers came up with their own stink.

From the Telegraph:

The makers of Stilton have come up with a unique way of promoting their pungent blue cheese – a Stilton-scented perfume.

Eau de Stilton will, apparently, “re-create the earthy and fruity aroma of Blue Stilton cheese in an eminently wearable perfume”.

It will feature a “symphony of natural base notes including yarrow, angelica seed, clary sage and valerian”, according to the Stilton Cheese Makers Association (SCMA), who commissioned it.

- – - -

No more bananas?

An article from New Scientist:

Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. Three years ago, New Scientist revealed that the world Cavendish crop was threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

Now the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers’ varieties are also disappearing. It could take a global effort to save the bananas’ gene pool.

Weak. No more Banilla yogurt.

- – - -

PETA does some dumb stuff sometimes.

Now, I’m a vegetarian and all, but I don’t think that PETA’s claim – “Over 50 million cows are slaughtered every year to feed your greed for burgers, bags and lipsticks. So who’s to blame if the cow goes extinct soon: the butcher, or you?” – holds much water.

The ad is great – very cute, and it gets the message across – and there are other ads for whales and elephants that actually make sense. But who actually thinks cows are going to go extinct? I mean really – are they an endangered species or something? A little over the top, though the concept is sound.

(Thanks to Ad Blather)
- – - -

Instead, PETA should have done something a little classier – instead of yelling at the top of their lungs, they should have done what BMW did with their Mini ads: given free space to organizations that actually do something.

An awesome idea – Mini uses just a third of the billboard (promoting themselves as effectively as they always have) and the other two-thirds goes to The Nature Conservancy.

Mini is now my new favorite car. In addition, they have the coolest ads and the best website.

(Thanks to AdRants)

- – - -

And that’s it. Finally.

Random Steinbeck tomorrow, friends.


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Issues Considered: Linkage

A final word on a former job

May 16th, 2006

Fueling a curiosity, I poked around on the internet looking for some news on how my former employer was doing after laying off or suspending pay of 56 employees, most of who worked in the headquarters building, just across the parking lot from us. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much.

I did, however, spend some time looking through some websites that document and track Internet Relay scams – where a person from an African country calls through Internet Relay for the deaf and attempts to use stolen credit cards or fake cashiers checks to purchase items ranging from computers to bibles. Without saying anything that hasn’t been exposed in the Argus Leader before, these calls made up a lions share of our volume on some days. They frustrated everyone, supervisors and operators alike.

We were given the means to disconnect them, eventually, and that helped assuage some of the negativity that seemed to hover on the call center floor. But that little dip slowly grew again, and I will contend that operators and supervisors alike are tired. Burned out. Most are searching, I’m sure, and even more are just quitting without a plan. What’s horrible is the amount of people that don’t have that option, which are essentially trapped into staying with this company that barely has the decency to keep them informed and treat them like they had been – with respect, humility and genuine appreciation.

Regardless of what you do, there’s a lot tied into how comfortable you are in your work environment. At times, the people you work with and the conditions you are put into mean more than any benefits or pay. And there’s nothing worse than being trapped in a circle of negativity, which I felt nearly every day at work.

A weight was lifted from my shoulders when I gave my two-week notice, and now I look back with intrigue and nostalgia, but not with any sort of respect or well-kept memories. I look back, just seven weeks ago, at a place that threatened to take more and more away without every giving back; a place that had little regard – or if they had the regard, they didn’t have the clout or power to do anything about it – for the position that a handful of top executives put the company in.

For a business that has won its fair share of local awards, I cannot understand how it ever got into the mess it’s in right now. They drove themselves into a ditch – a ditch they had slowly dug for years – and now they’re finding they can’t get out of it because they cut service and employee retention out of the program.

I mentioned it before when I talked about loyalty. But today’s searching kind of drove it home for me: treat the people you’re with well, and they’ll stick with you. Treat them like dirt, and you’ll have repercussions – you’ll find hundreds of current and former employees that are willing to stab you in the back, ready to pour out every foible and errant policy that’s come from the head office.

That’s my opinion, mostly curtailed and seven weeks later than I could have expressed it. Thankfully, I can look back with relief.

I wish I could say the same for everyone else.


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Issues Considered: Career

A secret congratulations

May 15th, 2006

I’ve been meaning to say something about this for the last couple of days, but I didn’t know how. It’s all very secretive. I’ve got to say it in a way that separates the knowing from the unknowing – those who are aware of it will understand completely, but those who aren’t will have no idea.

It’s as easy as this: congratulations. Congratulations on a union that has a basis of love, companionship and trust. Congratulations on making it through the trials you’ve both gone through to be with each other, and the time apart due to a system that wasn’t allowing either of you to be comfortable. Congratulations on taking a leap that most people never would have even attempted.

I’m excited for both of you as you start a new life together, free finally to pursue whatever it is you have planned.

Sometimes specifics never need to be mentioned. Secrets can be kept. Lives allowed to move on without extra troubles.

So congratulations, friends. I’m happier for you than you could imagine.


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Issues Considered: Friends

Live action Mario

May 12th, 2006

Thanks to Roberta, friend of Black Marks on Wood Pulp, for this week’s random YouTube — a live action Super Mario Brothers.

What’s great about this isn’t just the fact that it’s the entire first level, or that it’s live action (with pipes and fireballs), but that they thought deeply enough about it to include a pause right in the middle.

I wish I’d have thought of this.

Hopefully this will be the last “Nintendo” themed YouTube I put on here — the trend is getting a little out of hand.


Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Videos

Setting the mood

May 11th, 2006

How does a person’s mind determine whether or not its governing body is going to wake up in a funk – an utter state of annoyance – instantly cranky at nearly everything it comes in contact with? What is it that causes a person to wake up, roll over in bed, and exclaim that they “already hate today.”

I don’t know why it happens. But I know it’s happening to me today.

Waking up in a bad mood is a funny thing. It happens to me often – years of working late and getting up without an alarm spoiled me, and the sound of KELO news (the only station that reliably comes in on our radio/mini-television/alarm clock) is enough to cause a normally peaceful person’s blood to boil. I know I should be used to it.

I’m not.

So, add that to a messy house that I’ll have to spend an hour picking up when I get home, a windy morning that forced a few drips of coffee (it’s the idea, not the amount) onto my shirt, a breakfast that was rushed, no mustard in the house, a slightly sore throat, the prospect of being late to work (I wasn’t, but Kerrie might have been,) a Phoenix Suns playoff loss (and Miami Heat win,) a dog that wouldn’t come in when asked, the banal newscast – yes, it’s cloudy, and yes, the Harrisburg School District is newsworthy, but every single day it’s been a repeat, like a high school play version of Groundhog Day – a clogged coffee machine and, to top it all off, no iPod to ride my bike home to.

None of it is important. In fact, none of it would even cause me a second of adverse thought. Except I woke up in a bad mood today. So all of it piled up until I sat down at my desk, looked around, and read an e-mail from some moron who can’t answer questions properly.

And with that, I felt a lot better. Because I knew that, regardless of how good my morning was, I at least could answer questions properly and wouldn’t be considered a moron. Oh, and “Rings Around The World” by the Super Furry Animals helped too.

So, just like that, my mood dissipated and I was fine, though tired and ready for lunch. Of course, lunch is in another three hours.

By the time I post this, I’ll be eating a sandwich and drinking a Coke Heavy (no Diet Coke at work, and to hell with Diet Coke after my morning anyway.)

Why do bad moods start? Who cares – all that matters is how you get rid of them. The real question is how can some horrible moods persist throughout the day – oblivious to the best intentions and humor of co-workers, friends and family, while other horrible moods – quite possibly moods that are even worse and more horrible than most – can be wiped away by another person’s stupidity? On one hand, this e-mail should have pushed me over the edge, forcing my hand into going postal. Instead, it made me feel better.

I don’t get the human mind. I never will. All I know is that my bad mood is gone, and I’m actually enjoying the sour coffee they serve here at work.

The sun just came out, and I’ve finally got some work to do.


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Issues Considered: On...

Steinbeck II: The Reckoning

May 9th, 2006

Well, my adoring fan(s?) is missing me, apparently. Though I can’t begin to figure out why – I mean seriously, how much iPod blogging can you take?

Hopefully, you can take a little more. Because Steinbeck has been upgraded.

Yes. It’s true. In five business days Steinbeck I – my first iPod, a white 30GB model with a great personality – will be replaced. Sold off to the highest bidder. Or, I guess, the first bidder, a self-graduation present for our friend Steph.

This all works perfectly for me because it opens the door to buy what I should have bought in the first place – a black 60GB iPod, the model that has enough room to include not just my favorite songs, but my favorite albums.

Here’s the predicament I found myself in. We have over 500 CDs. Add to that the cornucopia of music I added to iTunes through friends and acquaintances, and you can imagine where I sat. One full iPod, with hundreds… no, thousands… of songs left wondering why they were sitting on antiquated compact discs and not on the newest in technological music media.

Kerrie — who initially was skeptical of purchasing an iPod, but now loves the little robot – first agreed to an iPod purchase under one condition: it was able to fit all of our music. Well, for the most part, it did. Every important song was on there. A handful of full albums, but mainly the best 6-7 songs from each disc we had. Still, we wanted more. We wanted to be complete. I knew I should have purchased the 60GB model as soon as I started putting music onto it. 30GB was just not enough. And what if we get new music? We’ve got to take time and whittle down our selection by 10-12 songs before we can even cram a new disc onto the machine.

Talk about a conundrum.

No more, though. Steinbeck II (who, according to the engraving on the back, will be simply named Steinbeck, as if the first never happened) will be complete. All of the best albums will be there – in full. We grew up in a time of great albums, not great songs. I want all of A Tribe Called Quest, not just the ten best tracks.

And do you know how hard it is to chose the best songs off of a CD you’ve only listened to twice?

So, soon, we’ll be welcoming this new marvel into our home. He’ll match his carrying case. He’ll tug at our hearts.

Welcome home, Steinbeck II. Welcome home.

Steinbeck II


Comments: 9

Issues Considered: Steinbeck on Random

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