Vega4 "Life is Beautiful" Contest

London-based band Vega4 is promoting global climate change awareness with a contest to create a video or slide show to their uplifting single "Life is Beautiful" (a very nice song). Details here: http://myspace.com/vega4

I'm a picker, and I'm a...

At a meeting this morning I met an overdressed woman who later told me she had a court date today for final divorce proceedings. She explained her bad luck with multiple husbands; abuse, etc. In describing her situation she casually said "my picker's broken." I had to think a minute but then realized she meant she makes bad choices in partners. I have certainly heard of people who continually choose the wrong type to date and marry, but in all my years in the South had never heard "my picker's broken"!

Is it really that difficult to stock the bank deposit envelopes?

How many times have you visited the ATM to make a deposit and the envelope bin is empty? Is it that difficult to keep the box stocked? I was just at my bank at 11:00 A.M. on a Friday, not midnight on a Sunday.

Are customers making so many deposits that the interns can't keep up? Are kids stealing them so they can play ATM with a magic-markered refrigerator box?

I have a new strategy (to which many of you will say "I've done that for years"): when I find a full box, take two and keep a few extra in the glove box.

The Guillemots and one of the best breakup songs ever

Mila clued me in on multinational band Guillemots. I can't get their song "Redwings" out of my head.

Stream it here and let me know what you think.

Lyrics:
****
This is where we fall from the trees
This is where the sky covers up
Daft killers of joy, you made a man out of me

And this is where the glass leaves the lens
Splintering a chemistry of friends
I'll treasure you always
You know I love you

And this is where we wake in the ditch
This is where our bodies sing no more
Fallen apples on the floor, pecked at by redwings

So pour another whisky out for me
It'll be the last bottle we share
As I drift into nowhere
Know that I loved you

But love was not enough to hold my grip
Can't you just feel my fingers slip
Into those oceans in the sky where people swim
Oceans in the sky calling me in
Oceans in the sky I tell myself

Though I'm not kidding anybody else
They know I'm leaving
They know that I'm leaving this behind

So I'm leaving my best friend
Just for the hell of it
Just for the sake of it
But how much I loved you

Vega4 at Exit/In City Hall March 28

Remember Vega4's uplifting "Life is Beautiful" from Grey's Anatomy earlier this season? The London-based band is making a Nashville appearance on March 28 at Exit/In City Hall, opening for Augustana. Check them out.

'The Riches' - Best Vehicle for Eddie Izzard

I've loved comedian/actor Eddie Izzard for a long time. Rent "Dress to Kill" and you'll understand. "The Riches" -- FX, Mondays 9:00 p.m. central -- may be the one vehicle that pushes Izzard over the (good) edge. Like "The Sopranos," the characters aren't who they seem (but we want them to succeed). And like "Six Feet Under," the gallows humor keeps you coming back for more. It's a "stick it to the man" show.

Nice touch that executive producer Izzard created his younger son character as a transvestite.

The Shins add Nashville Live Date

The Shins have just announced a Nashville live date: Friday, March 9 at 8:00 P.M. at the Ryman Auditorium.

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 16 at 10 A.M. ($34.50 and $27.50). Thanks to iConcertCal I found out about this through my iTunes.

Skype thinks Spanish is my first language

Skype just sent me an email with the subject line "Skype: Descarga la nueva versión con funciones agregadas." Even though I took almost five years of Spanish in school, I couldn't totally sprechen the lingity. I got the "hola" part...

Someone at Skype needs to tweak the data warehouse.

See concert calendar based on your iTunes library

I love this new iTunes plug-in called iConcertCal. Download the freeware (Windows and Mac) and based on the artists in your iTunes library, the tool displays a localized concert calendar. Click the artist's name and your browser opens to the appropriate club or ticketing site. Change the city and state in the upper left hand corner for shows in other locations.

Future versions promise listings for outside the United States and radius searches for larger geographic areas.

First Snow of the Season

MP3 Tag Fixing with MusicIP Mixer

I'm a stickler about my digital music tags (the meta data about a song). I've been known to meticulously scour my collection and manually fix bad identifying information. Slow and annoying!

Enter MusicIP Mixer, which promises to fix improperly-tagged files based on their Music DNS database of over 26 million songs. A quick analysis of my collection tells me that about 21% of my collection needs some sort of data tweaking. After a few minutes of churning through my songs (7 seconds per thousand tracks if you'd like to benchmark), I now have (more) pristine data, and to me that means more accurate cataloging, storage, and mixing. During the process, though, I received a couple of errors telling me that the application AACTagReader.exe (installed with the Mixer) had unexpectedly quit. Not sure what that's all about (need to look into that one). I figured out that two problems were causing the tag fixing to halt: read-only files and any file names that were very very long. After repairing all of the bad files, re-running tag fixing worked beautifully for the most part.

Some--not all--files with quote marks (such as '12" remix') in the ID3 track name were an issue as well. Although the tag fixer told me it had repaired these files, re-running tag fixing continued to find the same problem files. I may have to fix these files manually.

The paid version of the Mixer (only $20) takes the fixing one step further and will normalize artist names for you, so all those "Eliot Smith" and "Elliot Smith" tracks become "Elliott Smith."


Disclosure: I've been paid by MusicIP for a freelance project unrelated to the Mixer.

Her Short-Term Memory Reverie

My wife is forgetful. Yes, I have my own faults but this is my blog.

Yesterday she called me from home and asked if somehow I had taken her car keys. I checked...nope. We hadn't had time to get a spare key made for her newish car (a life saver in past situations such as these) so I had to leave work to bring her my key. Earlier in the morning she had taken Harry to school so the keys existed then. (?!)

When I got home I took about five minutes to look in the usual places: purse, clothes pockets, bathroom counters, all horizontal surfaces, dog bowls, laundry basket, teacups. Nothing.

The boys got home from school and started a search party. They looked in the semi-unusual places: the vehicle itself, trash, dog food bag, guinea pig cage, refrigerator. Nothing.

I was determined to find those keys last night: searched in the bed covers, under the car seats (amazing amount of electronics under today's butts), all vertical surfaces, the washer/dryer, unused Kroger bags, wrapped Christmas presents, plants, birds, rocks, things. Nothing.

Because I watch too much television, I was then convinced that an organized crime ring had been casing our house and had taken the keys with the intent to return later and steal both our cars and loot our house. Never mind they could have stolen the car when they first took the keys, but these are smart criminals. You never know what they're up to. One step ahead of us.

I battened down the hatches, turned on every conceivable alarm and light fixture, Harry placed a Gilligan-esque bucket trap over the door, we went to bed, and I woke up about every hour to check on our cars.

This morning I went to the garage fridge to fetch some milk for my coffee. Marci's car keys were nicely chilled in the fridge door where you usually put your beer. Seems when she was ready to leave the house yesterday, she stopped by the garage fridge to grab a water and by the time she reached the car three seconds later, had misplaced her keys.

Have any good stories of misplaced items?

Pete's number one country song

My pal Pete Stringfellow recently released his latest single 'Santa Rosa' exclusively* to KFGY in the S.F. Bay area. Dude has a knack for knowing what sounds good, what feels good, and what people want to hear. As a result he's scored the number one most requested country song in Bay radio.

I don't listen to commercial radio much anymore, but dig: at a conference earlier this year, Billboard editor Tamara Coniff said she was amazed because country music appears to be the last genre that (in her words) "lives and dies" by what's heard on the radio.

Pete's doing it right.


* The track is no longer exclusive to KFGY

"What's a vector?" is the new "Where did I come from?"

My kids are harnessing technology in amazing ways. This week I've discovered I have a future email spoofer and future game developer in my house.

First my seventh grader. He is in a heap of trouble at school for figuring out another kid's password and sending an email to the entire class as the other kid. Bad.

On to my fourth grader. For months Harry's been hinting at wanting to learn Flash because most of the games he plays online are built in Flash. I've been telling him it's a really complicated program and maybe he should start with something easier. Harry ended up putting Flash on his Christmas wish list; my wife asked me "what is Flash?" I told Harry he didn't need to ask for the software for Christmas. I have Flash on my laptop and immediately he started working through some online tutorials and quickly built his first simple animations.

A couple of nights later he was rummaging through the craft closet/recording booth and found a Flash 8 tutorial I had borrowed from work. He said "Dad, why didn't you tell me you had this?" as if I'd been holding back a great record collection or had been hiding a motorcycle in the basement. After flipping through the book he asked me "what's the difference between a vector and a bitmap?" Great moments in parenthood.

Last night he showed me his first shape tween. Proud papa I am.

My beloved Food City Foodland is now Apple Market?

The face of West End is changing once again. My beloved Food City Foodland has morphed into an Apple Market? Wha' happened, FC FL? You were one of the only places who would cash my girlfriend's checks during college (yes kids, this was before widespread, nationally linked ATMs).

Food City Foodland was the Grocery Store that Time Forgot. A couple years ago after a dinner at Ted's across the street, I ran in and grabbed something vital that couldn't wait for Kroger in the morning. As I left the parking lot I said to my kids in the low, gravelly Homer voice, "that place is freaky." Did I personally scare you into changing into the modern Apple Market? I didn't mean it like that. Honest.

(Note, thanks to Brittney for setting me straight on the former name.)

Two Decades Ago...Our First Date

Twenty years ago tonight was my first date with the woman who would become my wife. Funny thing is, I didn't know it was going to be a date.

Marci and I had met a couple months earlier on a double first date, but she was paired with the other guy. As the four of us continued to spend time together, Marci and I developed a nice friendship. Marci's short-lived relationship with John (my friend and "the other guy") fell apart, and it became clear that my relationship with Betsy was nothing more than infatuation that couldn't fuel a real coupleship.

I asked Marci to go to dinner at the World's End and see a play at Vanderbilt University Theatre because Betsy was going to be out of town. As it turned out, our friendship morphed into something more later that night.

Marci and I were married four years later, and we've had our major ups and downs over the years. On this day, twenty years later, I'm really thankful for where I am even though sometimes I don't act like it. Marci, I honor you today.

Great Moments in Parenthood, Vol. 1

For months I've been quietly playing the Illinois record by Sufjan Stevens. I've wanted my sons to really like it but haven't pushed it. I tivo'd Sufjan on Austin City Limits last weekend and played the show a couple of times and since then noticed both Will and Harry humming the tunes, especially "Casimir Pulaski Day." Well last night Will was practicing guitar and he went online to find the chords for the song! I listened to him play while I softly sang in the other room.

What's that disease I can't remember the name of?

Several years ago my wife had a scary skiing accident in New Hampshire where she bonked her head pretty badly. To this day she suffers from memory loss and still doesn't remember much of the rest of that "vacation."

Yesterday she was in an elevator and stuck out her hand to the man next to her and said, "I'm sorry, I recognize you as one of my doctors but don't remember your name."

To that, the man said, "I'm Dr. Soandso, your neurologist who's been treating you for your memory loss since your ski accident."

RØDE Podcaster Mic Kicks Serious Butt

I'm working on a project that requires some high quality voice over and the headset mic that Jon gave me (okay I stole it) just wasn't going to cut it. I couldn't spend a ton of money on new gear, so Pete turned me onto the new RØDE Podcaster USB Microphone. I picked it up on my way home from work (US $200), hooked it up to my laptop via supplied USB cable (thankfully it doesn't require USB 2.0), plugged headphones into the built-in jack on the mic, and in seconds I heard what I had been missing: high quality voice recording directly into my laptop without expensive hardware. I was blown away.

Uber giddy me because:

- No software you have to install from a CD (Windows XP hooked me up)
- Built-in headphone jack means you can "hear" what the mic "hears"
- No other special hardware required such as a mixing board
- Kick ass audio quality
- I can now play the Larry King Home Game in style
- The damn thing looks like a device I'd buy my wife from Good Vibrations on Valentine's Day

So tonight I went into my soundproof chamber (junk closet) and laid down some great VO (samples to come). Keep in mind you're going to need a mic stand and probably a pop stopper (think panty hose stretched over a coat hanger on the "We Are the World" video) if you want to do this thing right.

Only downside was that I couldn't get it to work with Adobe Audition so I ended up downloading the free Audacity which worked like a charm with the Podcaster. The mic is so new that a search on the Internets turned up no posts on compatibility with Audition 1.5. RØDE has a nice, short tutorial on using the mic with Audacity, though. Check it out.

The best part? My kids heard me working on the audio editing and asked "whose voice is that?"

"Why, it's Dad," says Mom.

"That's so cool," says Harry.


Tech notes:
Dell Inspiron 2650 (Macs supported)
Windows XP
Audacity v 1.2.5
Rode Podcaster

MusicIP Selected by Disney to Provide Key Technology for New Media Player Devices

Monrovia, CA (PRWEB) November 1, 2006 -- MusicIP, the world's most comprehensive music search engine, announced that Disney Consumer Products has licensed MusicIP's MyDJ™ embedded technology, which allows users to find the music they want to hear and to create instant playlists with a single button, to power the MixIt! feature on its popular Disney Mix line of portable media players for kids. more...