Shawnogram

The Who at Super Bowl 44

Shawn — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:17:46 +0000

I didn’t watch today’s Super Bowl game. I was, however, able to keep up with most of the action thanks to my recently downsized Twitter account. And during the game’s halftime show, I noticed quite a bit of antagonism towards this year’s featured act. Continuing the post-nipplegate trend of keeping things “safe,” the NFL chose to hire The Who to provide this year’s halftime spectacle. I’ll admit, I had mixed feelings about this decision. I’ve been a fan of The Who for a long time. At one time, I probably would’ve even described them as my favorite band. But, guys. Seriously? Here’s some soon-to-be-removed-from-YouTube clips of the band’s Super Bowl performance:

A medley of the band’s well-worn hits. Entirely predictable, for sure. But I won’t criticize that. Halftime only lasts for about 15 minutes. Had they played the full versions of just “Who Are You” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” they wouldn’t have had time for anything else. Still, it would’ve been cool if they had dropped one B-side/album cut in there somewhere. I mean, I like The Who. But I could easily go the rest of my life without hearing “Pinball Wizard” or “Baba O’Riley” again. And speaking of “Baba O’Riley;” Please, Pete Townshend. It’s been a long time since you’ve been a teenager. There’s something odd about you singing that iconic “teenage wasteland” line. Worse still, should this group even still be called “The Who?” Only two of its original members are still alive (the afore-mentioned Townshend on guitar and vocalist Roger Daltrey). The rest of the group was outfitted by Who backing-band vets. And for the most part, they held it together. The only real problems seemed to be between Daltrey and Townshend. They weren’t quite in sync. And I’ve always liked the dynamic between these two. They’ve been trying to upstage each other since the 60’s. But enough, already. Are all the windmills necessary, Pete? And please could you just sing the harmony parts and leave the rest of the singing to Roger? I think the thing that’s most disappointing about this whole affair is that – isn’t the Super Bowl supposed to be an American game? I know that The Who aren’t the first British act to play the halftime show. But, come on. Have all of The Who’s American contemporaries died or retired? I know that part of the problem here is that the Super Bowl is a huge event, and its organizers want something that will (hopefully) appeal to and (at least) not offend its viewers. But has the last decade’s worth of cultural erosion been that affective in keeping everything besides crusty old classic-rock bands away from pop culture’s center? Regardless, I hope the 2011 Super Bowl can find some new (or new-ish) blood for its midpoint festivities. I know I’m not the only one calling for this change. I just hope this communal outcry doesn’t wind up bringing us some weird combination of Creed/Nickleback/John Mayer. God help us all if that were to happen.

All kidding aside. I really have appreciated much of The Who and Pete Townshend’s catalog. Yeah, some of the stuff, I don’t really need to hear ever again (thanks classic-rock radio). Still, here’s some links to a few of my favorites. If you’ve been “CSI”-theme song’d to death by certain Who songs, I encourage you to check some of these tracks out.

The Who – “Love Is Coming Down:” The lead-in cut to the title track on 1978’s Who Are You. A nice ballad with a serious melancholy vibe. This might actually be my favorite song ever recorded by The Who.
The Who – “Had Enough:” Also from Who Are You, written by bassist John Entwistle. This song is a certified jam. Angry as hell, with a cool instrumental bridge in the middle.
The Who – “Blue, Red And Grey:” A bittersweet acoustic ballad from The Who By Numbers which has to be one of the most depressing albums made by anyone. Ever.
Pete Townshend – “Hiding Out:” Production on this one might be a little dated (mid-80’s) but I still love it. A testament to Townshend’s talent as an arranger/songwriter.
Pete Townshend – “Slit Skirts:” Whatever Townshend tapped into when he was writing this song, I wish he’d find again.

The Glengarry tweets

Shawn — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:19:34 +0000

I’ve been using Twitter since April/2007. And since joining, I’ve had some simple rules about which Twitter accounts I would choose to follow:

1.) If I had an interest in the person/company/organization using the Twitter account, I’d follow it. No expectations here that the newly-followed account would follow me back. But it’s always been appreciated when that’d happen.
2.) If an account chose to follow me first, and that account was representing a person/company/organization I hadn’t heard of before, I’d usually follow it back unless it was engaging in obvious spam-like behavior.

And that lead me to where I was just a few hours ago. I was following well over 900 accounts, and it was too much. Sure, I had created a special list using TweetDeck to keep track of the accounts that I really cared about. But that list represented a fraction of the total amount of accounts I had chosen to follow. And that’s just silly. Why bother to follow an account and then never actually see that account’s Twitter posts? So, I’ve spent the last couple hours clearing out my Twitter account. I’m now following a more manageable 444 accounts, and I’ve removed that special list from my TweetDeck.

I’ll admit. There was something slightly saddening in hitting the unfollow button a few hundred times. But it’s OK, Twitterverse. It’s not you. It’s me. I’ve changed, and I just need a little space. You see, back in 2007, you were populated by bleeding-edge types who were just interested in trying out the web’s latest attempt at social-networking nirvana. Over time, you became more popular. By 2009, you had become the watchword of the buzzerati. Suddenly, you were a part of corporate marketing plans. And seemingly, overnight, you gave rise to the Social Media Guru, an odd breed of creature who didn’t really exist the year before. But once introduced, the Social Media Guru took hold like a plague of hungry mice ravaging the countryside. And it just wasn’t as much fun anymore to follow back those new accounts that had, for whatever reason, found me first. Regardless, I’m still a fan of what you do, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to be a little more picky about which accounts I choose to follow from here on.

In all seriousness, I found it interesting to see just how many accounts I was following that hadn’t been updated in months and sometimes years. Makes me wonder if those statistics you hear about how something like five percent of all of Twitter’s users are responsible for eighty percent of the site’s activity. Also, I should point out that the follow/follow-back game I had been playing probably did a lot to boost the total number of accounts that were following me. Right now, I’ve got 1,085 followers. Before I began my unfollow run, I had 1,095 followers. As more of those accounts I’ve unfollowed realize what I’ve done, they’re likely to respond in kind. I’m sure that my overall number of followers will easily drop by a few hundred before the weekend’s up. It’s too bad. I’ve liked having over a thousand followers. But it’s likely that most of those followers were pulling the same TweetDeck scheme as me. Yeah, they might’ve been following me, but they weren’t really following me. Now I’ll be able to focus on the quality tweets (qualitweets?) or as I like to call them, the Glengerry tweets. Hmmm… Hope that doesn’t make me sound too much like a Social Media Guru. Anyway, if you’re not already, feel free to follow me on Twitter. I might even follow you back.

Big room move of 2009/2010

Shawn — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:09:08 +0000

We spent the New Year’s weekend moving things around. The plan was to take the stuff in the back room, and swap it with the stuff in the front room. I had the idea to do this last November, because I thought it’d be good to move the studio into its own space, and to make our living area a little more open and comfortable. We’ve been living with this new configuration now for about a month, and we like it.

I took a lot of photos. The deconstruction/reconstruction of the front room went something like this:

We moved the couch out of the back room a few days before the Big Move began.

My desk, as it was being taken apart.

The dining room table and benches had to be taken apart and reassembled. They’re put together better now.

I had to assemble the new TV stand. The next day, we moved the aquarium and our new TV was delivered.

I just took this picture tonight. (Yes, the TV has a cover.)

Now the back room.

After we moved the couch out of the room, Jen took a couple hours over the span of a few days to clean the floor. It was pretty bad.

We’re planning on eventually turning this closet into a vocal/isolation booth.

Many more photos can be seen here.

Tired of this shit

Shawn — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:55:54 +0000

After the Big Room Move of 2009/2010 (blog post on that coming soon), Jen and I have been spending more time in our back room here at home. This is where the computers are, and we spend more time in front of our computers than pretty much anywhere else. Right outside the door to our new studio/computer room is a small utility area, complete with washer/dryer hookups. We don’t have a washer or a dryer. Instead, we use the utility space for media storage. And since we’re not using the space for its intended use, that means those washer/dryer hookups are also not in use. And for awhile, that was no big deal. But since we started spending more time back here, we noticed something. Something foul. A terrible smell that would occasionally creep into the room. Theories were proclaimed as to the possible source. The most likely culprit was that one of our neighbors was burning/smoking/storing something, and every once in awhile, that something simply reeked. No matter. We’d light a candle and deal with it as best we could until the offensive odor dissipated. And after nearly a week of dealing with this on again/off again problem, it struck me.

This is either a dryer vent connection or a washing machine drain. It’s in the utility area mentioned earlier. And it’s not closed off. Which means it’s very likely that sewer gas is escaping through this opening, into our hallway, and then into our room. I know – it sounds disgusting. And it smells equally as bad. I did some research online, trying to figure out a way to cap the opening. I didn’t turn up anything useful. Jen and I took the above photo (on my iPhone) with us to a local big-box hardware store, along with some measurements of the offending opening. A nice guy, right at the entrance to the store, directed us to an aisle full of PVC pipes and related parts. After some looking around, we found what we thought would do the trick. A Fernco Quik Cap.

The plan seemed simple enough: Work the Qwik Cap into the opening of the drain/vent, maybe apply some caulk. Done. Well, it didn’t exactly go so easily. Before we left for the store, I had measured the opening and found it came out to four inches. And the Qwik Cap clearly shows its size as being four inches. But try as I might, I couldn’t get the Qwik Cap down into the opening. The cap was too big. I had a bright idea to cut some of the rubber off of one side, thinking that might alleviate the bowing effect that was keeping it from settling properly. But all I wound up doing was cutting myself (twice) and making a mess. A few more tries (and a couple bandages) later, I gave up. Out of curiosity, I searched out the Qwik Cap website. Imagine my surprise when I saw this image, and realized exactly how it is that these things are supposed to work. And when that little light bulb over my head illuminated, it gave me a couple more ideas: 1.) Get a smaller Qwik Cap, try same process over again. 2.) Insert a small piece of four-inch PVC pipe into the opening and then cap it with a new four-inch Qwik Cap. Ahh… possibilities.

Later in the day, we ventured once more to that big-box hardware place. This time, I brought along my tape measure so I could double-check the sizes of any potential parts purchases. We picked up a few different things; a PVC pipe with a cap, another (smaller) Qwik Cap, some adhesive and another thing that looked very promising. It’s an adjustable plug used for flow testing, and it’s specifically designed to close off drains, etc.

All the parts.

The adjustable tester plug.

Once we got home, the adjustable plug was installed into the hell mouth. And after a few good turns of its knob, it’s now sitting snug and secure. As the problem with the errant sewer gas isn’t omnipresent, we’ll know in the next couple days whether or not the plug has done the job. Hopefully, it does. ‘Cause were getting tired of this shit.

So long, 2009

Shawn — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:01:08 +0000

In a way befitting of this roller-coaster of a year, this last week has seen its highs and lows. As predicted, Jen is once again unemployed.. That became official last Wednesday, the twenty-third. And while it is discouraging news, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. That day was followed by a fun-filled Christmas Eve with some friends, a nice dinner and an excellent movie. Christmas Day found us traveling to my sister’s house in the North County. We had a tasty home-cooked dinner, exchanged gifts and hung around. Jen spent some time holding my sister’s new baby. I played Nintendo Wii Bowling for the first time. That shit is fun and highly addictive. I’m looking forward to trying out some other Wii games in the future. Then, on Saturday, Jen received not one but three pieces of mail from the California EDD. None of them contained good news. But, do they ever? I came to the conclusion over the weekend that, I make enough money that we won’t go homeless and/or hungry. If there’s no money beyond that, then anyone else expecting money from us can just get in line or go away. (Sadly, I doubt any of them would choose the latter option.) Yesterday, we gave away our old TV. That opened up the log jam in such a way that we could begin the Big Room Move of 2009/2010. We should finish with that over the weekend, and I’m excited about it. Having our studio and living spaces in separate rooms should make for a more harmonious, productive and fun environment around here.

I’m not a fan of New Years resolutions. Just before the end of last year, I made a to-do list of things I wanted to get done in 2009. Looking over that list, I’m proud to say that I was able to scratch off most of the stuff listed there. I’m going to make a new to-do list for 2010. Some things will be carried over from last year’s list. Some things from that list are no longer relevant. Most of what’s on this year’s list is new. Also, last year’s list was made up of tasks with concrete end points. This year’s list will be more about setting (and hopefully attaining) certain goals, and some of the items may be kinda vague.

Weight loss: I did lose some weight in 2009. I still need to lose more, but I’m lighter than I’ve been in years. At my last weigh-in, I came in at 235 pounds. I’d like to get to 215 by the end of 2010. I feel like this is a moderate, healthy and (most importantly) reachable goal.

Paint the air conditioner support structure: A holdover from last year’s list.

Video production: Spend more time on video production. Explore possibility of creating new Phantom Power Media YouTube channel for all of our videos. Get 100 YouTube subscribers on either this new channel or my existing channel. A small goal, but a good one to start with.

Work/finances: Continue to save money and pay off debt. Hopefully, not make any more debt. Launch side business doing local Macintosh computer work/service. Refine “professional” sides of Phantom Power Media to help attract multimedia/web freelance work.
Self-promotion: Do more of it. As long as its in ways that aren’t harmful/destructive/douchey.

That’s all I can think of for now. I may add more to the list as time goes on. Overall, I’m looking forward to 2010. I think I’m a better person than I was a year ago. And I hope to be doing even better a year from now.

Anyway, Happy New Year, everybody.

My review of Up In The Air

Shawn — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:02:05 +0000

I’m syndicating this podcast from Nathan Lott’s Rental Reviews site. Go here to leave comments.

Feast or famine

Shawn — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:30:13 +0000

Lots of financial ups and downs for us in 2009. The year began with Jen starting a new job. While the job was the right move for her at the time, she wound up bringing in less money overall, and the once-a-month paychecks she received made balancing our bill payments into a fun game. (And by “fun game,” I mean a game that isn’t actually fun. At all. Kinda like any video game that requires you to collect magic points.) But we got through that. We even managed to save up enough money during those months to get us through the summer, where she made less money while working a different job, and even had one month without any work at all. Not long after she resumed her regular job in the fall, she was let go from that position with a single day’s notice. She immediately filed for unemployment benefits. We were lucky because, for some reason, her last paycheck from the old job was larger than usual, and that helped keep things afloat. However, in the time between that money running out, and the time it would take for the unemployment benefits to kick in, things looked bleak. I consulted two attorneys offices about bankruptcy, in the hopes that we could dispatch our unsecured debts, thereby converting those monthly payments into cash. We were told that we could do that, but we’d also have to file against our home. And while we weren’t likely to lose our home, there were no guarantees. We decided to give it a little more time before taking drastic measures. And, after waiting almost six weeks, Jen began receiving her unemployment benefits and she’s been getting them regularly ever since. And not too much longer after that, she picked up a part-time job. Then, I got some good news in relation to my own income. It seemed as though things had turned around. It felt good. And during this happy-fun-time-feel-good period, I had some ideas. One of which is to do some shifting of rooms around here so that we can have a more dedicated studio space for our many multimedia endeavors. As things seemed to be looking good financially, one of the contingencies I placed on the move was that we would get rid of our old TV, a 32″ Toshiba CRT behemoth that weighs like 1.5 tons (rough estimate). Here’s a not-so-great photo of the Toshiba:

And since we’d be ditching the old set, that of course would mean that we’d have to get a new one. And indeed, we did. We purchased a big, fancy flat panel LCD TV (kinda like this one but I think ours is a different model). We arranged to have the new TV delivered on Monday, January 4th, as the weekend before is when we’ll be making the Big Room Move of 2009/2010. Everything seemed pretty damn sweet. Until this week. It’s beginning to look as though that part-time job of Jen’s is growing a little more tenuous with each passing day. She’s still got the job. And who knows? She may wind up having it for a long time. But, things are… uncertain. And I don’t do well with uncertainty. It makes me anxious. And when I get anxious, I get analytical. Overly so. And that over analysis lead me to wonder if the purchase of the TV is still a good idea. We financed it, and we got a good deal as far as that’s concerned. But if Jen does end up fully unemployed again, we’ll have less money coming in. Sure, the unemployment benefits she has (which she’s been drawing even while she’s had the part-time job) will be raised, and that’ll help. But those benefits won’t last forever. We had a pretty lengthy discussion about it last night. And we’re gonna keep the TV (damnit!). The payments aren’t that high, and we’ve always got the nuclear option of selling it if our finances get so screwed that we can no longer make the payments. But, yeah. Uncertainty = bad.

In related news, the TV stand we purchased to use with the new set was delivered today by TWO dudes from UPS.

We have dubbed it boxolith. It’ll look something like this if (when!) it’s finally assembled.

iFixed

Shawn — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:57:04 +0000

Today, my busted-up iPhone arrived in my mailbox. And it’s no longer busted! Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Since getting the phone back, I’ve reinstalled all of the apps I was using before I sent it off for repair (I removed some for security reasons), and everything’s working just fine. It’s almost like new, except the home button feels a little different. Nothing wrong with it. I’m pretty sure the button is part of the digitizer/display, so it was probably replaced as part of the repair. I give much credit to uBreakiFix for performing a flawless fix. I’d definitely recommend their iPhone service to anyone who’s unwilling to pay Apple’s expensive repair fees. Also, the entire process only took a week. Not bad, considering the phone had to be shipped from California to Florida and back, and it’s the busy holiday shipping season.

I’m definitely glad to have my iPhone back! Now, I need to find a good protective case for it. I’ve received a few suggestions, and I’m considering an OtterBox. Please leave a comment if you have any recommendations.

Life without iPhone

Shawn — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:53:47 +0000

It’s been a little over a week since my iPhone got all busted up. I have since shipped it off to be repaired, and am now awaiting its return. In the meantime, I’ve had to revert back to a pre-iPhone lifestyle. And it’s been surprising to see just how much I had come to rely on that device. There’s the rather banal stuff, such as mobile Twitter posts and Brightkite check-ins. But I’ve also been using the iPhone’s clock as my personal watch. Being out and about and unable to easily check the time can be problematic, especially when traveling by bus. I’ve found that using the time stamps on cash register/ATM receipts has been helpful in this case. I’ve also spotted some things that I would’ve liked to have photographed. But that wasn’t possible.. Another thing I’ve missed is the iPhone’s built-in iPod media player. I’ve been using my iRiver to listen to audio files, and it works well. But it lacks the convenience of the iTunes/iPhone sync, and it only holds 512 MB worth of data. And finally, the iPhone is, after all, an actual phone. I don’t make many cell phone calls. But without the iPhone, I can’t make any. I haven’t found myself searching for a payphone yet. But it could happen. Anyway, I’m anticipating the return of my iPhone. According to the most recent update I received from the repair company, it’s on its way back to me. Considering that we’re in the heat of the holiday shipping season, it’s hard to say how long it’ll take to get here. I’m hoping to have it back by the end of next week. Then, I’ll be able to get back to the important business of letting everyone know where I’m having lunch.

iBroke

Shawn — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 05:58:23 +0000

I was walking somewhere this morning. As I crossed over what I thought was a clear corner between a parking lot and a sidewalk, something grabbed my right foot. I went down on to the concrete. It wasn’t a particularly hard fall, and I had managed to shift my weight on to my left side, which somehow helped to disperse the impact’s energy. And in that hurried moment just after the fall, as I was laying there on the wet ground (we’ve been having some actual weather this week), I watched in slow motion as my iPhone tumbled through the air, landing on its back, right next to me. I mentioned above that I had managed to fall on my left side. And I almost always carry my iPhone in my left coat pocket, and I almost always keep that pocket zippered up. But for some reason, this morning, I hadn’t zipped the pocket closed. A couple guys nearby, who witnessed the fall, asked if I was OK.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. But my phone’s not.” I could see that the iPhone had been damaged. I picked it up to get a closer look. Here’s what I saw:

I put the iPhone back into my coat pocket, remembering to zip the pocket closed this time. I got back up on my feet and tried to piece together just what had happened. Apparently, that corner between the parking lot and the sidewalk that I had carelessly stepped over was bordered with just-taller-than-ankle-high landscaping fences. A combination of me being legally blind, the relatively low light caused by overcast skies, along with the fact that I was wearing sunglasses (it was still bright enough out that I needed them) kept me from noticing that those little fences were there. I was wearing headphones that were attached to the iPhone. I’m pretty sure that, as I fell down, the iPhone slid out of my pocket, and the momentum of my body falling forward swung the phone up in to the air by the headphone cables. It’s doubtful that the phone would’ve come through the fall unscathed even if I wasn’t wearing headphones. And I realized later that, as I fell on to my left side, it’s still possible the phone might’ve been damaged even if I had properly closed my coat pocket, as I might’ve fallen on to it. Regardless, the damage was done. I played around with the phone for a bit after that to see if it was still operable. And it is. It actually works just fine. But even though it’s still technically functional, it’s not very usable. Later in the day, I went to the San Luis Obispo Apple Store. After waiting around for a bit, I had a short consultation with a dude from the Genius Bar. He said that they could fix the broken phone right there at the store for $199.00. They could just pop the broken glass off and replace it, good as new. I told him, at that price, I’d have to give it some thought and come back later. He then also told me that, while they don’t recommend it, you can usually find places online that’ll perform the same procedure for less money. I actually already knew that. While I was waiting for my Genius time, I used one of the many in-store Macs to do some research. I found the website of a company called uBreakiFix. This company offers the same repair for $79.99. That’s close to a third of Apple’s price. Later in the evening, after I had returned home, I looked around to see if there was any serious dirt on uBreakiFix, and I didn’t find anything negative. The company looks to be a legitimate operation. I’ve already ordered the repair service and I’ll be shipping my iPhone to them the beginning of next week. It’ll suck to be without the phone for a few days. Obviously, if I had just paid Apple’s price, I’d already have the phone repaired. But the inconvenience is worth the money that I’ll save. And as soon as I get the phone back, I’ll definitely be purchasing a protective case. It’s one of those things that’s been on my mind for awhile. But, I just never got ’round to doing it.

Procrastination is bad.