The Blog with No Name

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What’s with Washington and it’s cities coming up with really lame slogans? Seattle’s new promotional slogan is “metronatural.” That is so hippie post-modern sounding I want to scream. What does that even mean? It’s probably worse than Washington’s recent attempt at a slogan: “SayWA”.

After listening to the new Ratatat album, Classics, a few times through, I’ve decided it’s a really good album. You should buy it.

I walked out of Easy Street Records with a very odd mix of CDs. I thought it was odd anyway. You tell me.

First, I found MC Hammer’s absolute classic album, “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘em.” Straight outta ‘90! I used to love this album when I was a kid and practically had every lyric (or at least what I thought were the lyrics) memorized. It was right up there with The New Kids on the Block “Hangin’ Tough” album. I just listened to it, and it’s really pretty fun and oh so very tame. It also strikes me as very cheesy too. I also bought Scary Kids Scaring Kids’s album, which is a fairly decent screamo album (nothing unusual there), and Ratatat’s “Classics” album, which I would recommend to anybody who likes chiller instrumental music with some electronic elements on top of guitars and drums. Also bought a greatest hits album of Roy Orbison of “Oh Pretty Woman” fame. Finally, I bought Strapping Young Lad’s new album “The New Black” which is, well, a really heavy speed metal album. So, today I purchased an old skool rap album, an emo screamo album, an indie electro-rock instrumental album, a oldies crooner album, and a death metal album. If that’s not evidence of an eclectic musical taste, then I don’t know what is.

Some other quick audio tidbits from around the Intertubes:

Bride of Monster Mash has a free album for download of techno/electronic mixes and re-mixes centered around a Halloween theme. The re-mix of the classic song “Monster Mash” is pretty good.

A nerd buddy of mine pointed out that archive.org is a great resource for old radio programs. I’m looking forward to listening to the original broadcast of Orsen Welles’s famous “War of the Worlds” and the late ’40’s horror radio series “Inner Sanctum.”

Firefox 2.0 hit RC2 (release candidate 2) a few days ago. In noob-speak, this means Firefox 2.0 is probably going to be hitting the virtual shelves sometime within a month. I’ve been using it the 2.0 builds at home for a couple of months now, and I haven’t had any issues except for extensions not working. Ars Technica has a nice overview of what 2.0 has. I agree with the reviewer: spellcheck alone is worth the upgrade. This was one thing I’ve been wanting for a while, especially since other OS X browsers like Safari and Camino have it supported natively. If you do use a lot of extensions, you may want to hold off on upgrading. I had to dump all of my extensions and switch to a different adblocking extension. Annoying, but that’s the price I pay for being on bleeding edge of awesome.

Check out Pandora. You: type in an artist you like. Pandora: fetches similar music for you to stream for free right over the International Intertubes! How cool is that? “Very cool” is the correct answer.

(via Dan, who doesn’t like Third Eye Blind)

UPDATE: And here is 15 tips (some of them obvious) to get more out of Pandora.

I got good news. Monday will be my first day as a full-time employee of T-Mobile. I will no longer be a contractor! This means I’ll be getting paid more money and better benefits for doing the same work! How cool is that? It’s comforting to be the subject of a more rigorous background check and still be allowed to have a great job at a great company. Despite all the mistakes and stupid things I’ve done in the past, I’m still considered a worthy candidate for employment! Exciting! Now, I just can’t screw anything up in the future. . .

Long time no post. Let’s fix that.

Work has been pretty crazy lately. Last week saw the end of the quarter, so lots of people are rushing to complete quarterly goals. This doesn’t affect me too much because I don’t have quarterly goals (yet); however, there was a definite intensity as projects are drawing rapidly to a close. It also hasn’t helped much that I’ve been struggling to keep my sleep schedule on a more responsible, grown-up path, meaning I haven’t been going to bed early enough. I’d describe last week as seven days of tiredness. I think I’ll do better this coming week. All this being said, work is going well. Really well. Yes, I am implying something with those italics.

Tonight, I went to a friend’s new house to watch the Seahawks get trounced by the Bears. I went for the nachos and free beer too lest anybody think I’m becoming that big of a sports fan (yet). As he was giving us the tour of his place I suddenly had a completely new thought: “Hey, I want one of these.” I was a little shocked at not only my desire’s object but also the intensity of the desire. It really was just a flash in the heart, but still it was there for a brief moment. Of course, the thought that occurred immediately after that was, “Well, I can’t live in one of these alone.” Then my mind wandered on to thoughts matrimonial, and then my general frustration with things romantic began welling up, so I set that line of thought aside. I’ll return to it later, when I’m less excitable.

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