Tag Archives: music

Uncategorized

Disk Schlockeys

As much as I like to think of myself as being Mr. High-Tech Geek Dood, I am somewhat old-fashioned. I don’t trust automatic billpay, don’t carry an iPod around with me every minute of the day (or even OWN an iPod for that matter) and I still mostly listen to the radio to get my recommended daily allowance of music.

My favorite station is currently the local Jack FM station because they play a lot of the older stuff I like, but more importantly, they don’t have any DJs. After having listened to Jack FM for some time, I find DJs to be even more annoying now.

The first time I went to the laundromat I now wash my clothes at, their PA was tuned to a local “Hit Music” station. It was two hours of mind-numbing HELL; if the speaker hadn’t been concealed, I would have ripped it out of the wall. When I turn on the radio, I want to hear MUSIC. I don’t give a crap about who got voted off on American Idol last night, I don’t want to hear the lame-ass DJ’s lame-ass jokes and his lame-ass sidekicks laughing on cue like Pavlov’s dog, and I don’t want to know how to tell if my significant other is cheating or any of that other crap.

Talking is for AM, music is for FM, its that simple. The next time I went to that laundromat the PA was tuned to Jack FM, so maybe its not just me.

I have a radio/CD player in the apartment, so I can listen to music and occasionally I’ll drop in a CD. If I am at the PC, I might fire up Winamp and pick out some MP3’s. I like listening to CDs in my car, or I’ll flip around the local FM stations, and I have an MP3 player I listen to while I work out.

I was helping a friend paint yesterday, and after some time, I noticed something was missing. There was no music. I used to help one of my brothers paint our parent’s house and he would always have either a radio outside blaring or his car’s trunk open with the stereo cranked to get that extra kick while listening to KISS.

Unfortunately, I could never do it to his satisfaction, and this would inevitably end with us yelling at each other…like I said, I used to help.

I asked my friend if he could put some music on, and he said yes and exited the room. I was fully expecting him to come back with a portable radio. Instead, he goes to his computer room and fires up iTunes on his Mac. Of course, the first song that cued up was something I wasn’t crazy about, but what can you do?

Standard
Uncategorized

Lights, Liquor, and Licks

Our company Christmas party was this past Saturday, and it was held at Mr. and Mrs. CEO’s house. They live in one of the ritzy parts of town, where they not only have a gate, but a guard station to keep the riff-raff (i.e. people like me) out.

That said, the neighborhood had the worst Christmas lights I’ve ever seen. When I lived with my parents, my brother and I would put up the Christmas lights; I like to think we did a good job of it.

My biggest Christmas light pet peeve is the whole “wrap the lights around the trunk of the tree” bit. It is particularly ugly when you do it to a fucking MESQUITE tree where the branches go every which way but straight up. If you are going to put lights on a tree, COVER THE WHOLE DAMN TREE. Obviously you can’t do this unless the tree is short, but when you do, it looks awesome, and yes, I’ve done it. Otherwise, it looks half-assed, as if you had strings of lights left over and didn’t have anything better to do with them.

Anyway, every few houses had trees with lights wrapped around the trunk from about 3-10 feet off the ground. I’m not sure if that was by design, but whomever had the idea should be hung by them.

I met some of the developers that work just around the freakin’ CORNER from me at the party. I find it a little disturbing that I’ve been there half a year and have not met a lot of these people. Lesson learned: if you want to make your developers even more anti-social than usual, give them offices instead of cubicles.

The food was good. Granted, it was a hell of a lot fancier than I’m accustomed to, though. There was also a “white elephant” gift exchange. I had neglected to buy a gift, so I didn’t participate, but it was fun to watch. No company Christmas party would be complete without speeches as well…blah blah blah. They really need to have it somewhere else next year, though, there was nowhere near enough seating for everybody. My feet were hurting pretty good when I left.

Overall, I’d say the company Chrstmas party I went to last year was better. Those who were there may raise an eyebrow, but I’ll take good company and regular food over a fancy-pants setting and unfamiliar faces. Call me nutty, I guess. Of course, the BEST one I’ve ever been to was the one where the company president was handing out Christmas bonuses. Payday is coming up, though, so perhaps that might still happen. -crosses fingers-

As I was leaving, Mr. and Mrs. CEO were at the door handing out boxes of chocolate and bottles of wine to employees as they leave. I don’t drink alcohol at all, but I also didn’t want to be rude, so I take the wine and go on my merry way. I now have a bottle of Chateau Liversan Haut-Medoc 2003 sitting in the kitchen collecting dust until I find someone to give it to. I can only assume its good stuff, all I really know is that it was made in France, but it may as well be a bottle of air as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps when I distribute Christmas cookies this weekend, I’ll find a taker. Does a red or white go best with Oatmeal Raisin cookies?

On Sunday, I went looking around for gifts for my nieces and nephew, as I’ve already got all the adults on my gift list taken care of. I’m agonizing over what to get for the kids, for whatever reason. As part of my trip, I went to Best Buy, where I noticed the Rock Band demo was available. Having been a drummer myself (marching band), I thought I’d give it a shot, and fired up “Detroit Rock City” by Kiss.

Rock Band was damn good fun, and I was getting into it. The drum pads don’t feel quite right, though. When you strike a drum, your stick should bounce. The Rock Band drum pads are hard plastic, and you don’t get that bounce. I don’t expect this to make sense to those who don’t play drums, but it makes a difference. Between that and the hardware issues I’ve been hearing about, I think I’m going to wait until version 2 before I get it, if indeed, I do. Or perhaps I should get a cheap electronic drum set and rock out that way. In any event, Guitar Hero isn’t going away anytime soon!

Standard
Uncategorized

Let The Music Play!

I was up until 1:30AM last night playing Guitar Hero III…which added another level of fun to work today, but I made it, and on only one cup of coffee, no less!

I really like music, and I really like games, therefore by logical extension I should really like music games. And I do! Starting from the top:

Dance Dance Revolution – Probably the first music game I played since “Simon” (yes, I’m dating myself here) and certainly one of the more popular ones, my initial experience was dulled somewhat by a crappy 3rd party pad and my big feet. I currently own Supernova for the PS2 and its quite fun, though currently living on the second floor limits my stomping around. I’d have to rate it my least favorite of the games on this list mainly because of the J-pop heavy soundtrack, but its fun.

Elite Beat Agents – Touch screen + highly stylized comic-book graphics + rhythm-based gameplay + wacky stories that could only come from Japan = FUN! The gameplay is solid, and the soundtrack is a nice mix of classic and current tunes from the US pop charts. If I have anything bad to say it, its that the audio quality of the music could be better. If a sequel ever comes down the pipe, it’ll be a “Day 1” game for me.

Karaoke Revolution – You don’t need Simon Cowell to find out that you can’t sing, though Virtual Simon is available in the American Idol edition of the game. While this is more of a jazzed-up karaoke machine than a game, its still loads of fun. Check your dignity at the door with this one, which of course makes it a great party game.

Guitar Hero – I have been a fan ever since I played the first game at Circuit City. Admittedly, the game would be quite the same without the awesome controller, which takes it all the way to 11. The soundtrack, for the most part, rocks and with online play now added, the game only gets better. The downside is that non-rockers need not apply…or is that a plus?

Whether its stepping, tapping, singing, or rocking, music games will always have a place in this gamer’s systems.

Standard