And now a haiku:
Recommendations
Spotify is uncanny
The Magpie Salute
Category Archives: Entertainment
Rival Sons – Feral Roots
And now a haiku:
Rival Sons deep roots
Hearkens back to Led Zeppelin
Not Greta Van Fleet
Weezer (Teal Album)
And now a haiku:
Weezer’s new album
Was released without warning
Cover songs abound
Instrumental Please
I like a lot of progressive metal. I think bands like Mastodon are fantastic. There are some other bands, however, where I think the music is fantastic, but the vocalist just screams all the lyrics making it unlistenable to me. I just don’t enjoy that.
And now a haiku:
Aggressive music
Does the singer need to scream?
Instrumental please
This is His Jam?
There was a time when my son’s favorite bands were Queen and The White Stripes, but that was when he was 5 or 6 years old. All was right with the world. At 12, he listens to mostly Top 40 because that is what all the kids do. Now his favorite song becomes his least favorite song within weeks. However, his musical tastes can still surprise me.
I was driving in the car with my son last night when a familiar guitar riff emanates from the stereo speakers.
My son exclaims, “Oh, this is my jam!” and turns up the volume.
The “jam” was Rick Springfield’s Jesse’s Girl.
Yes…Jesse’s Girl is his jam. Go figure.
And now a haiku:
Classic guitar riff
Is Jesse’s Girl the savior?
Maybe there’s hope yet
Chipotle Haikus
As you can probably tell, I love haikus. There is something so simple and elegant about them and they are fun to write. Trying to make a poem within a defined structure is a challenge, so I like to think of them as part puzzle, part art. I am not saying that I am any good at writing them, but I enjoy the process.
My friend sent me a link to a contest that Chipotle had yesterday that involved writing Chipotle inspired haikus. I submitted a few entries.
And now some haikus:
Traveling Sonic Highways
So…the Foo Fighters. They were never really on my radar until recently.
I was definitely a fan of Nirvana, whose heyday coincided with my college years. I was definitely upset and affected by the death of Kurt Cobain. However, when Dave Grohl released the first Foo Fighters album, I don’t remember being all that impressed.
Over the years, my opinion has changed. There are a number of singles that they have released over the years that I enjoy hearing and I can say that I respect the Foo Fighters artistry, but I wouldn’t have called myself a fan. Until their last studio album, the excellent Wasting Light, was released, I had never heard a Foo Fighters album in its entirety.
There are two things that the Foo Fighters, and Dave Grohl specifically, have been involved with in the last year that has led me to stand up and take notice.
First is a documentary called Sound City about a once-famous recording studio in California where a lot of classic rock albums were recorded. There are four very cool things about the documentary:
- The history of the studio is fascinating.
- The studio has a one of kind sound board that Dave Grohl basically rescued and installed in his home studio. Otherwise, it probably would have ended up in a junk yard.
- There is a soundtrack for the documentary “Sound City – Real to Reel” that is basically Dave Grohl and friends, a lot of whom had recorded albums at the Sound City studio — including Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, and Rick Springfield, recording songs using the board from Sound City.
- Dave Grohl’s passion for music and music history is very apparent. He comes across as an extremely likable guy who really cares deeply about music and the history of music.
Second, believe it or not, is also a documentary. Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters have created a documentary series on HBO called Sonic Highways. For the Foo Fighters next studio album, they are traveling to a bunch of cities across the US and the documentary details the history of music in that city and, while they are there, they write and record a song that is influenced in some way by the city.
The first two episodes have aired. The first was about Chicago and the second was about Washington, DC. The DC episode was intriguing to me for two reasons:
- Dave Grohl grew up in Northern Virginia
- I grew up in a DC/Baltimore suburb in MD and he’s not that much older than me
In my youth, I was aware of bands like Bad Brains and Fugazi and had heard of Ian MacKaye, but I had never heard any music by those bands or other known bands from the 70s and 80s DC scene. I don’t know if I was too young, too sheltered, or too into Van Halen to notice those guys, but I wonder what kind of influence those bands would have had on my musical tastes if I had been exposed to them back then.
Because of these documentaries, I decided I may have missed out by not listening to old Foo Fighters albums. So, I spent the last two days listening to all of their albums. I was disappointed that my initial instinct was correct…I wasn’t missing much. They are all good solid records, but there’s only one or two albums that I think I would want to listen to over and over again: Wasting Light and One By One. Of course, a Foo Fighters greatest hits album would warrant heavy rotation with Pretender being my favorite Foo Fighters song.
I think Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters appear to be improving with age. Besides Wasting Light, I really love the Sound City album and the two songs they have released so far for Sonic Highways are both incredible and I cannot wait to hear the rest.
Would I now consider myself a fan of the Foo Fighters? Yes, most definitely.
And now a haiku:
Those infectious grooves
Traveling sonic highways
Where’s the next exit?
Spotify? More like Spookify.
I have sung the praises of Spotify in the past. It is a great and valuable service for someone like me who listens to music on the computer all day while I work. I have also used Spotify in conjunction with Last.fm to discover new music. Recently, Spotify introduced a feature called Discover that works similar to Last.fm. Discover uses your listening history to suggest music that you may want to listen to. In my brief time using Spotify Discover, I can safely say that it does a much better job than Last.fm at suggesting music that is relevant to my tastes.
Spotify Discover may suggest a song that I have not listened to in awhile or a song that it thinks that I would like based on other songs that I have listened to.
Imagine my surprise and horror when I saw the following:
“Livin’ On A Prayer was huge when you were a teenager. Play Now?”
The fact that Spotify suggested that I may want to listen to Bon Jovi is not the problem. At first, I thought the suggestion was kind of funny because it was true — Livin’ On A Prayer was huge when I was a teenager. Then I freaked out a little bit because it was true. How the hell does Spotify know my age? I quickly checked my Spotify profile and my birthday is no where to be found. Spotify is deeply integrated with Facebook, but I never linked my Facebook account with my Spotify account for privacy reasons.
Apparently, there is no privacy on the Internet. Is Spotify guessing my age based on the music I listen to? I do not think so because my kids listen to music using my account also. I think I would really lose it if the next suggestion said, “Your daughter listened to Katy Perry. She might like Lady Gaga.”
I do not know where they are getting my information, but the Internet probably has enough information about me to connect the dots. Spotify uses HTML5 under the covers and I am guessing that cookies are to blame. Cookies are bits of information that websites store locally on your web browser. Unfortunately, 3rd-party cookies can be used to keep track of websites that you visit and can be used to build a database of information about you. I am about 99% sure that is how Spotify is able to determine my age. If I had ever entered my birth date on another website, it is possible for Spotify to access that information and associate it with me. It is definitely scary.
Unfortunately, there is probably nothing that can be done about this. Even before the Eric Snowden stuff came out about the NSA, I had already accepted the fact that privacy is a thing of the past. However, this revelation that Spotify knows my age has really rattled me. I guess when lack of privacy smacks you in the face, it becomes real.
And now a haiku:
Oh, omnipresent
Spotify, seer of all
Friend of Big Brother
Missing Out
About a year ago or so, I started to become fascinated by Food Trucks. I have never eaten from a food truck, but the Food Network had a new reality competition show called The Great Food Truck Race. My previous impression was that food trucks all sold greasy hamburgers and fries at construction sites. What I was seeing on the Food Network was unreal. Yes, there was a food truck called Grill ‘Em All that sold hamburgers, but these were not your typical hamburgers. The other participating trucks included Vietnamese fare, gourmet French, crepes, bar-b-que, and others. While I did not really enjoy the competition part of the show that much, I really enjoyed the food trucks and watching the chefs in action.
After we moved to Wake Forest, I discovered a show called Eat St. on the Cooking Channel. The show is essentially a food truck version of “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives”. The quality of food and the sophisticated cooking techniques being employed by the chefs rivals many fine dining, ‘brick and mortar’ restaurants. These food trucks all seem to have one thing in common: they go where the people are and that usually means a big city. When we lived in Maryland, we lived in close proximity to Baltimore and DC. However, we did not frequent the city and certainly not during the work week when it would probably be the easiest to find a food truck. While my obsession with food trucks has grown, I still have not had the opportunity to become a food truck customer.
Missed it by that much.
Back in February, my company announced that a food truck would be parked in front of the building to coincide with the grand opening of our fancy, new lunchroom. Fantastic! — except for the fact that I now live about 270 miles away from the office. The event was such a success, that the food truck now comes once a month.
Word has gotten out. There are now 4 different food trucks scheduled to be in the parking lot at work at different times during the month. Who knew that Laurel, MD could be such a hot bed of food truck activity? I wonder if the novelty wears off and if the lines become shorter and shorter with each visit. I need to plan my next trip to coincide with a food truck visit, so I can get in on the action before it is too late.
I honestly have not tried to find any food trucks in the Raleigh area. I just did a quick search and found a site that lists the Twitter handles for a bunch of local trucks. Ironically, I just need to look out my window to find a local truck. Last weekend, we saw a food truck parked in my neighbor’s driveway, which I thought was a bit odd. We had not met these neighbors yet, so my wife and I used the food truck as a reason to stop over and say hello. Our neighbor is a trained chef and bought the truck last summer and is about ready to start up business. Of course, he is not going to to set up shop in the neighborhood, but he said that he will have some kind of pre-launch event in the neighborhood, which I am looking forward to. I cannot remember the name of the truck, but he will be specializing in New York-style diner food.
So far, I have been very passive about this obsession. I think it is time to get out and experience some mobile cuisine.
And now a haiku:
Mobile restaurants
Fancy meals served up curbside
No delivery
More Time Warner Issues
I thought that I had gotten to a point where I was relatively happy with Time Warner Cable. However, I just hit a snag. When we were in the process of moving, I was stressing out about watching my hometown sports teams. I had figured out a solution that I was happy with.
With baseball season on the horizon, I went to MLB.TV to sign up for the 2013 season. For $25 for the season, I could watch any Orioles or Nationals game live. Then, I started reading the fine print talking about blackout restrictions. I entered in my ZIP code not expecting any teams to be restricted. I was stunned and extraordinarily perturbed to see that I am in a blackout zone for both the Orioles and Nationals.
I thought that if you could watch the game on TV, then you were in a blackout zone. Other than DirecTV, there is absolutely no way for me to see the games live. If I subscribed to MLB.TV, I could watch the games starting 90 minutes after they end.
I have called MLB.TV to complain.
I have written to MASN to complain.
I have called Time Warner to complain.
I have searched the web and found that MASN and Time Warner are in a dispute.
Time Warner just recently added the NFL Network. If they can delay a channel that their subscribers around the country were screaming for, what is their motivation for making a deal with MASN? My only other alternative is subscribing to the most expensive tier of DirecTV, which has MASN.
Other options:
- Use my sister’s Slingbox to watch games (when my sister and her husband aren’t trying to watch something else).
- Figure out how to route my Internet through some proxy server so that MLB.TV thinks I am not in a blackout zone.
I am very upset about this. Especially because my son and I enjoy watching O’s and Nats games together.
And now a haiku:
Orioles and Nats
Quality time with my son
Nixed by corporate greed
RSS Links
Better Off Jed 