Archive for the 'Music' Category

Live8

Marty June 26th, 2005

You know, there has been a distince lack of originality in entertainment in recent times. Bands are using other bands styles or doing straight covers, NBC raping great comedies from BBC, and most especially in movies, where nearly every movie out this year will be a sequel, a remake or a derivation of a TV Show or book.

When I heard about Live8 coming back to Philly, I was excited - and we are going to have a good line-up, as well. But it struck me today - this is just another example of lack of originality isn’t. After all, isn’t this Live Aid - the Sequel?

But I’ll still be there, nonetheless…

A fortnight later

Marty April 22nd, 2005

Wow, has it really been that long. Strange how time flies when you’re out sweating while building new flower beds. My wife and I have been working our butts off to put in 4 new flower beds, a new vegetable garden, plant 101 different flowers and plants (including an entire hummingbird/butterfly garden), spread 4 cu. feet of topsoil and 7 cu. feet of mulch, and basically got a great workout and tans for the last week or so.

The end product was worth it, but between that and my latest design work (see below), I’ve been too busy to really do much blogging - or even surfing for that matter.

I did have a chance, however, to go pick up my latest pictures. I had quite a few that I really like - mostly flower pictures (we were at Longwood Gardens after all), but still some shots that I’m really happy with.

Design News

I’ve been busy lately, too. I got most of the new martytdx.com up and running. The sub-pages are still coming, mostly because I’m struggling with a design idea: do I stay with a similar theme 2 and 3 layers deep, or do I make the tertiary pages a little more exciting? I’m still on the fence, although I will probably try both ways and just see what I like.

On the work front, I finished 99% of the update for the spring on Mystique, I’m putting the finishing the touches on a law firm’s website, I have a logo/site design offer for a online music site, and a bunch of side projects that I finally have had SOME time to get too. And I’m finally getting some bites for a normal 9-5 job, too. Thanks, Van!

completely unrelated

I saw this on overcaffeinated.net last night - the Top 100 Quotes off of QDB (bash.org). Even without any real experience with chat, these were hysterical.

How long does it take to fill up an iPod?

Marty March 3rd, 2005

Well, in my case, about 2.5 months - and I’m not even partway through my CD collection. It seems that I hit the limit last night, although I’m not sure why. I was adding the last of the MP3 from my system and hit the 20.1GB level on iTunes. Hmmm, that might be a problem with a 20.0GB iPod. So, I started looking at what I had. After removing a few duplicates, bad tracks or stuff that I really didn’t want, I was still at 19.9GB. So, I removed entire sections of music that I’ll keep on MP3 but not necessarily store on the iPod - I’ll never really listen to it there.

So, I got my iTunes list down to 18.8GB - cool, now let’s synchronize. And behold, I get a message that I can’t upload all of the songs because the iPod is full. What? How does 18.8GB on iTunes = <20GB on the iPod? I’m not sure, but until I deleted the 1.1GB of Depeche Mode tunes (Depeche Mode Singles Box set is a biggun’), it wouldn’t load.

Strange thing is, now my iPod is showing 8.8GB of free space (and 3715 songs). What gives? Obviously, I’m missing something that is on iTunes, but I’m not sure what yet. But the bigger problem is this:

what the heck is on the iPod that requires 1.1GB of space? Obviously since my ceiling of transfer was less than 18.8GB, there is something going on. Okay, I could maybe understand a quarter-gig of space for programs (although I think that’s still excessive), but 1.1GB? What gives?

Also, if anyone knows the answer to this, I’d appreciate it - when I have my iTunes set to auto-sync, does it remove songs from the iPod that I removed from iTunes? I thought that it did, but it was my one thought of what might be happening - that I might have a couple extra songs on the iPod that weren’t showing up on iTunes. Also, how does one clear the iPod completely to start fresh with what you have on iTunes currently?

Now, I just have to figure out just how I have 8.8GB of free space on the iPod after syncing it last night…

in other news…

I just discovered a cool new tool for Flickr - the Flickr Zeitgeist. It’s a small JavaScript that allows you to put a zeitgeist of your pictures (or those of your contacts, the newest on Flickr or a combination) on your site in a compact little box. Check out the upper right-hand corner for mine.

Funny Fact of the Day
“When he was the prinicpal owner of the Texas Rangers, George W. Bush briefly flirted with the idea of changing the team’s name to The Texas Alamos, until an assistant told him that Texas lost the Battle of the Alamo.” - from Gullible.info

iPod Me, Pt. II

Marty December 28th, 2004

Okay … I got it, finally. I got my iPod - have I mentioned how awesome my wife is? Okay, so she might have thought I was kidding about the whole TiVo thing, but I got my iPod, a beautiful watch and a good coat to wear to work instead of my L.L. Bean barn coat (which I thought was pretty stylish, myself). She spoiled me, and I spoiled her and we spoiled Blair. All in all a good Xmas.

I got a bunch of new music, some great new books (including a few that I hadn’t asked for - always a joy to find something that I didn’t even know about, let alone hint that I wanted. One of those was The World’s Most Dangerout Places by Robert Young Pelton. It seems pretty interesting from what I’ve thumbed through - conversations on diseases, crime and war zones that exist throughout the world, and explores why you should go there, and how to protect yourself if you do.

Unfortunately, my stepson was VERY ill all Xmas Eve and Xmas with the flu, and cut short most of the holiday festivities for everyone. Let me tell you - being sick over Xmas is not fun, and he was a trooper for being as up for the holiday as he was. He’s better now, and enjoying Everquest II, which looks like a fun game although I will probably never know, being too cheap to pay a second $14.99 a month to access their servers.

My wife, however, has been really enjoying her big gift - a Nikon D70 Digital Camera. She has barely put it down since getting it, which is a thrill to see since I was hoping that she would really like it. She was speechless when she received it, which I took as a good sign, but her enthusiasm has been an even greater reward. And she’s already getting very used to it and taking some fantastic pictures (I’ll try to get those up tonight). Of course, now I’m jealous ’cause I want to play with her camera but I guess I’ll have to wait a while…

iPod Me

Marty August 20th, 2004

iPod
Okay, I sent out some emails about getting me a free iPod - I’ll apologize now to those who think I spammed them. But believe it or not, the offer is real! Check out Wired News to learn more.

Basically, you need to register and try out one of the offers to get me a completed referral. Don’t worry - there are some free ones, so you can sign up with your junk email address, sign up for a ‘free info’ link, and that counts for me. And if FIVE of you do it, then I get my $299 iPod for free. In case you already deleted the link, you can click here to access the site.

Thanks,Marty

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