Blog Hiatus

I can't blog too much for a while. I'm busy!

Interesting and Annoying: Jim Nayder

Packing up here at Eggs McKuzma central for Monday's move, and The Annoying Music Show came on.  It's the most painful 5 minutes in radio, and I love it. NPR has a few of his choice clips here. Prepare to be amazed.

Interesting: David Mead!

We've been fans of David's since his first album dropped in 1999, and in the summer of 2003, I even had a chance to go to a song writing workshop where he was teaching. I've always been amazed by his death-defying hair, his high, meoldic voice, and his catchy, catchy hooks.

His new album, Tangerine, comes out Tuesday, and rather than me writing a lame review, just listen to it and buy it, ok?

Early favorite:  #3, "The Trouble with Henry"

Interesting: Meanwhile...

Eight and a half months later...

Helpful: Don't take this on the road

I guess this is how these LiveJournal meme things work:

Look at your MP3 collection. What is the worst possible mix tape you
could make? Now these don't have to be songs you personally don't
enjoy. But these would be songs you know if you forced your friends to
listen to it on a long road trip you would be left at the road side,
even if it was your car.

1. "Magazines," Wes Cunningham - An ode to Jenny McCarthy
2. "Bugs," Pearl Jam - Accordion abuse
3. "Seed to a Tree," Blind Melon - Even the Bee Girl hates it
4. "In the Springtime of his Voodoo," - Tori Amos - Exhausting
5. "P-Poppin'," Ludacris - Wow is that song filthy
6. "Winding Road," Bonnie Sommerville - This was on the Garden State Soundtrack?
7. "How Does a Duck Know," Crash Test Dummies - Deep question from a very deep voice
8. "Lilac Wine," Jeff Buckley - Stick a pen in my eye!
9. "I'm Going to the Place," Lyle Lovett - I love Lyle, but his gospel stuff gets old
10. "Freaks," Live - Choice lyric: "If the mother goes to bed with you, will you run and call Geraldo?"
11. "Trees," Rush - Nerd war in the forest!
12. "Cup of Tea," The Verve Pipe - It's not, it's not, it's not my cup of teeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaa

Interesting: Corner of the Sky

Well, more like an ellipse, actually. UIC just unveiled a public art space on campus called a "skyspace." It's a public plaza with fountains and an observatory that are open year-round. I'll have to check it out and post some pictures Tuesday when I will be near campus; until then, check out the press release and this post with pics from local blogger John.

Interesting: Flickr Fire pic

Gas Fire 2
Originally uploaded by Mountain Mike.

Hey, just thought this was cool.

Interesting: US gets no respect

At least, not for World Cup soccer. The latest Tradesports index shows that the US isn't even favored to make it out of the first round, and has a 1% chance to win it all. Ridiculous.

Helpful: Memory Master

I was gonna link to this earlier, but, um, I forgot to.

Helpful: Crossing the chasm

Kid Oakland makes a brilliant point here that I hadn't expected. Now I need to go back and reread The Tipping Point.

Not helpful: Eight minutes on Ticketmaster

On a whim, I thought I'd try and get tickets for Radiohead that went on sale this morning. I entered the Ticketbastard waiting room at exactly one second after 10:00 AM and was kicked out at 10:08--all of the tickets were sold out.

Update: Some people have already listed the tickets on ebay and the price is up to $400 for 2 tickets. Not bad for 10 minutes' work.

Helpful: RCN

The modem fritzed out today, and the service call to the cable company was actually tolerable and helpful. The agent suggested I buy a new modem myself and gave me model numbers for compatible modems. That way, I would save the $5/month rental charge, get a $3/month credit, and save the charge of the service visit. Oh yeah, and there's a Best Buy half a mile from my house, so I had it purchased and installed in 30 minutes. So thank you RCN, Motorola, and Best Buy. Have a great weekend everybody.

Helpful: Go for it!

If a football team keeps kicking or punting on fourth down, statistical analysis shows that the coach is a big ol' wuss.

Helpful: Make Money by Blogging

I checked my Google Adsense account yesterday, and so far, I have made $1.12 this year. Woo hoo! Looks like I need to read this article by Steve Pavlina.

Helpful: Mint Julep time

One reason I love the Magical Computer Internets: no need to retype the recipe for Maker's Mark Mint Juleps. I can just do this.

Interesting: Pay more, get sicker

So, we pay $5,200 a year on health care in the U.S. and Britain pays half as much. Yet we're sicker, even if you pretended that Brits were as fat as us. National healthcare now, man.

Helpful: Blogger Navbar

A quick template note--the blue bar at the top of the screen now has functional search for this site.  So if you want to search for some junk, go right ahead. This update let me remove the Google search bar from the middle of the screen--phew!

Helpful: Immigrants

With any issue in current events, there are always lots of theories being cast about, but not too much data. Once again, I've gotta give credit to the Center for Urban Economic Development at my college; its research about the positive economic impacts of immigrants plays those Minutemen for chumps.

Just a year ago, Republicans made a huge deal about Social Security--who will be around to work and pay taxes when the Baby Boomers retire? Oh no! Now, they want to evict 10+ million relatively young workers and families that pay payroll, sales, and property taxes. Brilliant. Since the data isn't on their side, I believe that the real issue for conservatives, as always, is the fear of people who are different. Different languages, different food, different customs.

Get over it people. This is a big country. There's room for everybody. Now lets set up a program so we can let as many people come in as we need, give anyone a chance to earn citizenship, and make sure that anyone who is here has ID. Done.

Interesting: Free Audible Trial

Audiobooks and podcasts are great; I took advantage of a free trial from Audible.com a few months ago and listened to Bill Clinton read his autobiography. Ah, good times. You can get a free 14-day trial, too. Just be sure and tell 'em kuzmatt9 sent ya.

Interesting: Happy MA Day

As in "Mission Accomplished."