Click the Ads

Some of you may have noticed, while others may not have.  If you look up a couple of inches on your screen, you’ll notice that I’ve got ads on the page.  These are generally supposed to be related to things I post on here (compliments of Google Adsense).  OK, I know this is going to sound pathetic, but it actually does help me out when y’all click on one periodically.  Trust me, they’re not paying much, but it’s better than a swift kick in the butt.  I’m not begging (yet), but if you see one that seems remotely interesting, go ahead and click through.  Or, if you have visions of me getting wealthy and hiring you to be part of my entourage, you may want click on a lot of them.  Just a suggestion.

In other news, I’ve actually found my desk.  This is big progress, as I’ve felt just absolutely buried the last few weeks.  I actually started cleaning it on Sunday night, and finished up this morning after a couple of meetings.  I had to rearrange a couple of things, but the space and additional organization feels pretty nice.  I think this is a carry over from my days at TNG, where it seemed like I never had time to try to find my desk.  I would start cleaning, and I’d either find a crisis, or one would find me.

Anyway, that’s it for this one.  I need to update the sports one with some random thoughts.

Clamoring Public

A couple of you (Karol probably being the most vocal this time) have pointed out that I haven’t posted in a while.  Yeah, sorry about that.  I have been doing a bunch of work stuff, so I haven’t had time for much of anything.

So I’ll start off with some housekeeping items.  First, Aaron is now 41, and will turn 42 in about 2 hours.  He’s been sick once, but he bounced back pretty quickly from that.  I’ve noticed that he poops more as he gets older.  He also eats more.  It used to be I could fill up his bowl before I went to bed, and not have to worry about filling it up again until around lunch the following day.  And even then, there was still food left.  Now, I’ll fill it up before I go to bed, and the freakin’ thing’s empty by the time I get up in the morning.  Add the 4 or 5 turds lying in the yard, and I’m beginning to think he’s got some digestive issues.  Outside of that, he generally likes chasing the ball around, and playing with his rubber duck.  Every now and then he’ll do something like running across the yard and sliding, or jumping up and down, but other than that, he mainly sleeps, eats, and craps.

Today’s been relatively normal, though it was warm enough for me to clean out the air filters (I’ve got permanent ones that I have to wash out periodically).  Of course I hit Harris Teeter & Target this morning.  Did a little bit of reading, paid some bills, and did a little bit of work.  Managed to watch most of the Arizona – UNC game.  Such is my life.

That’s it for now.  I’m off to vacuum downstairs and then probably do some filing during the OU-Texas game at 9:00.

I Have a Pet

Yep, you read that right.  I’ve got a pet.  OK, it’s a virtual pet, but it’s the first one of any kind for me (I don’t count the fish that Chad won at some event about 20 years ago).  It’s actually an application called Little Palm Pet that I’ve downloaded and resides on my Treo.  I’m supposed to feed it, brush it occasionally (which makes it happy), clean up it’s crap (luckily done by clicking on the virtual poop), give it toys to play with, and let it sleep.

The thing got the best of my curiosity last night.  It seems to add a year about every 8 hours (an approximation right now).  It looks like a combination of a dog and a cat (which apparently some people have taken to calling a “cog”, but I’m referring to as “dat”).  The thing can also get sick, and you’re supposed to give it medicine.

The one I’ve started with I’ve called Aaron (not for Hank, Rob’s dog, but for Aaron Ward, the Yankees second baseman in 1921).  He’s now 2, and seems to like playing with the rubber duck.  He’s started to chase the ball around some, but plays with the duck a lot more.  He also likes to sleep a lot, which is cool with me.  I also think he craps more than he eats, which I haven’t figured out the math on yet.

And before any of you say anything, yes, I know this doesn’t really educate you on anything outside of something I did.  However, it’s a better fit here than on my other blogs.

I have to go.  I think Aaron is humping the ball.

Moaning about Music

Greetings again, kids.

It’s been a busy week here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have time to vent about something that’s been bugging me for a while:  The lack of decent pop music.

Yep, I’m going to date myself here.  I grew up at the tail end of the American Bandstand years.  I can remember the segment they had called “Rate-a-Record”.  Or as Dad called it, “Rate-a-Wreck”.  No matter which kids they had to be the judges, the criteria seemed to be the same.  If “it had a good beat, and you can dance to it”, it would do well.  If not, it didn’t.  Granted, not everything that came out of the 80’s was good, but it seemed like there was a lot wider variety in the stuff that made top 40 lists.

Now, it seems like a song needs waaaaaaay too much bass, and has to pretty much be related to hip-hop somehow in order to get any airplay.  Not only that, but if you put together a rap or hip-hop group, you have to follow the formula:  Lose any ability to spell, come up with an extremely dumb name (like Lil’ Flip or Young Jeezy—what the hell is a Jeezy?  Is it like cheesy?), and don’t have any ability to sing (Sean Paul, who seems to be a poor man’s Biz Markie).

I have to go back to Dad here, who referred to 80’s rap as “Rap crap”.  Granted, I disagree with him there, as I liked Run-DMC, L.L. Cool J, some stuff from the Beastie Boys, and things like that.  But you could make out the words.  There’s a reason most hip hop videos only show the “artist” dancing with scantily clad ho’s:  If they didn’t, nobody would watch or listen.

There are some exceptions to this, but even these are either 80’s/early 90’s holdovers (Maria Carey, who, sorry Chad, is crazy, and Madonna, who’s older than all the Def Leppard guys except Phil Collen and closing in on 50!), or American Idol winners (Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Bo Bice, Clay Aiken--gag).  The other exception is the wannabe actor/singers (Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Hillary Duff) who are really borderline singers (at best) and are getting by on looks.

OK, not everything now is terrible.  I kinda like the stuff I’ve heard from Weezer, though I’ve never bought any of their stuff.  I’m fine with Eminem (the Detroit connection for me doesn’t hurt), though I haven’t heard anything off his last album that’s done much for me.  I’m not a fan of the Black Eyed Peas, but there’s certainly a lot worse stuff out there.  But you gotta ask yourself—In 20 years, are today’s teens still going to want to listen to the stuff they’re playing now?  Are they going to remember the lyrics?  Or is it going to be a whole era of songs like “Louie, Louie”, where nobody really knows what the lyrics are and you just make noises that might form words just by blind luck?

The whole name thing for hip-hop acts is just stupid.  Since when did putting “Lil’” in front of your name become a good idea?  Lil’ Flip, Lil’ Romeo, Lil’ Bow Wow (or Butt Wipe), Lil’ Wayne.  Geez, I think they’ve gone a lil’ brain dead.  I’m waiting for Lil’ Dufus.  And this is leaving off the fact that Sean Combs can’t decide on a name, when the one his mom gave him would work just fine.  I was disappointed he decided to go with Diddy, as I was convince Po’ Duddy was next (after Puff Daddy and P. Diddy).  Sorry Sean, but I don’t think it was the P. getting between you and your fans.  It might have something more to do with your entourage.  

At the same time, music labels can’t figure out why people don’t buy as many CD’s as they used to.  As if surrounding rows of crap with more rows of crap makes the first batch of crap look better.  If any of you reading this actually run a music label, I did buy a couple of CD’s recently:  Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” (their 2nd “Best Of” collection) and Depeche Mode’s “Playing the Angel”, which is actually pretty good.  I don’t remember the last CD I bought before thoseI don’t own an iPod because, well, I don’t need music with me wherever I go, particularly the new crap you keep releasing, and I don’t go that much, even if I did need it.

So that’s my thoughts, anyway.  Have a good weekend.  

Testing Audioblogger

Holiday Weekend

Is it me, or does this weekend not really feel like a holiday weekend?  I’m not sure why, but yesterday felt about like any other Sunday.  Granted, part of my problem is that I just don’t see New Year’s as a big deal anymore.  As an adult in my 30’s, I’m pretty much allowed to stay up past midnight anytime I want to.  And not being exactly a party-going type of guy, I went to bed around 11:30.  I did have the TV on watching some episodes of South Park, but South Park doesn’t exactly scream “Happy New Year”.

The other thing probably playing into this a bit is the fact that I’m going to be doing work a good portion of the day, even with all of the football games that are on.  I need to get some mailings out, get a new company set up in QuickBooks (because the home office changed the chart of accounts, groan), get some supplies ordered, and work on a proposal or two.  I’m in for a pretty busy week, with 3 interviews, 2 proposals, and 3 other prospect meetings scheduled for this week.  Don’t get me wrong, this is the problem I’ve been wanting to have, and it’s a good thing to be busy, but it does put a squeeze on your time.

Speaking of which, the other thing that will complicate things is the fact that my cell phone is acting up.  I’ve got a Treo 650, and it’s started turning itself on.  I can turn it off, but it only stays that way for about 10 seconds, and then it turns itself on again.  Now, I’ve only lived in my house for about 6 years.  It was brand new when I bought it, so I know for a fact that nobody has ever died in here.  Only bugs who’ve gotten in my way have died, and since animals (and insects in particular) don’t have souls, they can’t be haunting the place.  So I’m guessing something is messed up with this thing.  This means another lovely trip to the Sprint store, which is up by South Park Mall.  Not in, just near.  I kind of hate driving up there, so I may just wait until I’m in the neighborhood on Wednesday or Thursday.  Ugh.

Oh, before I forget, apparently Blogger has a thing set up something called Audioblogger where I can record my stuff instead of typing it.  Needless to say, I’m seriously considering it.  I’d probably start this off by just reading what I would normally write.  While this may sound boring, keep in mind that for those of you who don’t know me that well, you’ll be in a better position to know when I’m being sarcastic if you’re listening to me.  If this is something you’d like me to try, post a comment.  If it’s something that will cause you to flee to some impoverished Central American nation, tell me that too.  I’d hate to see you leave the U.S., unless your ultimate dream is to stage a military coup of Costa Rica.  Of course, if that’s the case, I don’t think it’s my blog that would be the final straw.