Get Out Of My Stations, Guided By Voices. This is not their best work, but it is the first one I bought by GBV. I remember being 16 driving in the car listening to WNUR and they played a GBV track and I pulled over at the first payphone, called WNUR to find out what that was. From the payphone I went out and bought the first GBV thing I could find, which was Get Out Of My Stations. I was amazed. The lofi mixed with the hooks mixed with the lyrics that made no sense what so ever on some tracks but seemed to speak directly to me on others. I now know that, especially at the time, that Robert Pollard drank alot of beer, and there is a really good chance that those lyrics really don't make any sense, but I still am of the believe that I just don't understand the meaning, but it certainly has one. For every major relationship, heartache, or drama in my life, I have a GBV song that I have matched up to it. I have written multipage letters to accompany mix tapes where I explain why this particular song matches that particular person's situation so perfectly. There is also a good chance that given the sheer size of Robert's catalog, he has no clue what half of the songs mean himself, but some are so amazing to me. So combine that exploration aspect with the hooks that I can't seem to get out of my head ever, I have a band that I still listen to on a daily basis. My last.fm shows that they are my favorite artist, with 3 times the plays of the number 2 artist. And they were so awesome live. Amazing. And drunk. In the heyday there was a giant cooler of bud light or some such crap beer on stage and he would just drink and drink and drink and somehow the shows were still good.

30 Something, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Remember when mtv played music videos? Remember 120 minutes? I used to look forward to that show everyweek, and sure I was really tired in 7th grade monday mornings as it was a midnight to 2am sunday night time slot, I loved that show. So when they played the video to Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere I had to have it. I used to tape the show so I could rewatch it, and I remember that VHS tape was all warped at that part. So then I started buying everything of theirs I could. The lyrics all tell some story, often pretty down like alcoholism, child abuse, death, depression, etc. I loved it all. It was all so political and amazing to a 13 year old. And it seemed so much more arranged and british than The Dead Kennedys (whom I never loved as much). I even convinced had the DJ at my 8th grade catholic school dance play Prince in a Pauper's Grave as the last slow dance. Of course I carried the CD with me. When I was in college and heard they had broken up I was surprised that I was actually depressed about it. I must have played only Carter for 2 weeks straight. My roommate thankfully spent a lot of time in lab. It is one of the bands where I own every single they have released on mutlitple formats. I have test pressings to certain records. I have an autographed copy of jim bob's book. I have emailed with them. I never saw them live, as the first time they toured the US I was underage and the 2nd time I was actually in the UK. I know, a band that is, at its core, 2 dudes and a drum machine seems kinda lame, but seriously, Amazing, but when they announced they were getting back together, 10 years from their breakup, to play one show, I looked at airfare to london.

De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead. This is the first album that I really GOT as an entire album, it is like a journey, and I find that even though mp3s has destroyed the concept of a linear path through a recording, I still listen to this album straight through and enjoy it that way. I don't listen to it as much now, but man, my seiko portable CD player played this CD straight for so long and used so many AA batteries (that joker used 6 AA's for about 4 hours of continuous play. Life was tough for CD players in 1991). I have nearly everything De La put out as well.

I'll stop, but other highlights are Sugar's Copper Blue, The Vindicitives - The Many Moods Of The Vindicitives, Minor Threat - Discography (and any Fugazi, Fugazi at the aragon in ~1993 is on the top of my most memorable shows), The Dead Milkmen - any, Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction and to a lesser degree use your illusions (I convinced my dad to take me to the midnight release of those albums when I was in 8th grade. It was me, my dad, and a bunch of crusty dudes standing in front of a record town or some shit in the dark. It was awesome. I didn't sleep that night although they can't carry like Appetite did for me at the age it did), The Best of Rotterdam Records Volume 1 (German hardcore techno FTW), The Pixies - Trompe Le Monde, Naked Raygun - Throb Throb and Jettison, New Order - Brotherhood, Primus - Seas of Cheese (Saw them at aragon a few years ago where the 2nd set was that entire album, such a good disc)....

John's Comment:

Someone needs to let these people know about the upcoming new iPhone.

Funny funny shit. Nice to see that he can recognize the frivolity of the same industry that he works in. Good job.

As you may know, I am a web developer by trade, so I am often more critical of sites than the average bear. That being said, the Green Party will never get ANYWHERE at this rate.

Number one, Jesse Johnson. Not sure about his logo from a design point of view, but I AM sure that it should not be that pixelated. Header and footer design are a bit lacking in terms of style. Not liking the font either. But I REALLY don't like how the navigation is present only on the home page, and is gone on every other page (although there is a 'back to the home page' link). Seriously, dead end every click? And needless to say, it doesn't pass validation.

Number two, Kent Mesplay. Not sure what year it is, but is isn't 2008. Those buttons are nice and smooth. The header takes up the entire 'above the scroll' area. Awesome. Table layout. No doctype? You can imagine how validation went.

Number three, Kat Swift. oooookkkkkk really? This is your bid for the president of the united states? Really? Your index page doesn't even have your full name on it. Perfect for SEO. The blog link is first and foremost, but it is off site. And written by someone else. Design wise, I won't even start. Again, tables (surprised?). And Doctype is also missing. Serisouly. It is tabbed nicely, so that is a plus. White and yellow text on a black box with a green background is not a plus. My eyes are still adjusting. I'll stop here.

Number four, Cynthia McKinney. This one actually looks like they used photoshop, so that is cool. Not sure on the middle hump top shadow thing, not sure what light source could actually create that. I guess I am supposed to think the green box is coming TOWARDS me. But the other buttons on the page have lighting effects that don't support that. Glowing text is a good use of a filter in the aforementioned photoshop. ALMOST had the heavy header thing working, but for some reason stopped shy of full width. The even have a gradient in the background. Would have been cooler if the background and the content box worked better together. They are the only one with an RSS feed, which is good. Not updated too often, but hey, they have one. Table layout. And this is the ONLY site I have ever seen were w3c couldn't complete the validation. Oddly enough, this seems to be due to a comment in some script. The calendar link takes you to another site, with a totally different look and feel. I wish they had done some more styling of the text in the site. But really, this is the best (?) site of the bunch.

So this is the current state of the Green Party's candidates.

I bought Apple stock on 10/24/2000 at $10.44/share. I sold it this year at $190.28/share. Nice.

Now if I had only bought more than the few shares I did, as I bought under 100 shares. Oh well.

Awesome.

So I always thought that a place where you place your order via a touch screen or something would be dope. Then have a runner bring the food out. Still have a staff to refill water and bus tables. And a call button would be good, but that would be it. Then I can do what I wanted to do all along at the resturant: eat and hang out with the person/people I came with.

When I would propose this idea to friends/family, I was always presented with the 'but where is the social interaction?' and 'but that seems so cold and lonely', etc. The same response I used to get to the concept of peapod, netflix, etc. Am I to understand than that people are willing to be more inconvenienced doing mundane albeit necessary tasks so they can revel in the social interaction with the cashier at the grocery store? The blockbuster employee?

Having been a grocery store employee, I am not sure I agree with that. While I tried to be friendly, primarily because it would make my day go faster, it was hardly the interaction that I would get excited for. And I have known blockbuster employees. They rarely liked their job, and they were rarely over 20.

My retort was always that the time savings from eliminating the time suck of many 'low quality' social interaction level tasks, like grocery shopping, movie rentals, brick and mortar shopping, etc would free up time to create 'high quality' social interaction, like dinner parties, play dates, hanging out with friends, etc.

Of course my parents still scoffed at the concept, but I maintain it is true. And with that time savings, some friends and I could go to this new automated resturant: Baggers restaurant in Nuremberg. While it is kind of a hike from chicago, it is the kind of place I would be all about. He even has an automated track system to deliver the food. I am not sure that is necessary, but I am sure that will be a draw for customers, so I am sure it will make people more inclined to visit.

I am not sure that I see the design/implementation of the track system to be cheaper the cost of food runners alá my idea anytime in the first few years of operation, but I am sure that wasn't his plan. I would like to see his place take off and do quite well. I would like to see more resturants like this. I will admit I always kinda thought that japan already had such restaurants, although I don't recall seeing any when I was there or reading of any however I haven't looked too hard.

So while I don't wish that every resturant goes the way of Bangers, I would like to see some here. I would give it a shot. Anyone know of any here in Chicago?

win win win.

Firefox 3 Beta

Aside from firebug/web developer/Stylish not working, it is great. Seems faster, and the memory footprint is WAY better. This MIGHT be due to the above mentioned firebug/web developer not working. heh. This is the current winner.

Flock

I gave flock a try again, and it is ok. The toolbar on the left is nice, although it could be improved. It is so... staccato in its presentation. I am currently using it or facebook, twitter, and youtube. I am also not sure that the top of the window is the best way to sift through media. That being said, I did just, as I wrote this, opt to update my twitter, and I went to flock. I could have just as easily gone to the twitter dashboard widget. hmmmm... The other problem is it seems that flock suffers from the memory footprint growth problem as well.

Sunrise

I was excited about the small size of this browser. I can handle a stripped down browser for some stuff. The only issue here is that sunrise seems to quit unexpectedly ALOT. Like I can't really evaulate the memory usage since it never stays up that long. And I am not hitting any crazy sites either. The link preview image and the bookmarking image are cool features. The window resize tool on the toolbar is nice for development. But seriously, crashing is a big problem. I'll keep watching it as it matures.

Conclusion...

I think I am going to stay with firefox for most of my stuff, due primarily to the firebug/web developer feature set. But since those are not yet working in Firefox 3 Beta, I am going to keep playing with the others. Perhaps I'll change my mind for everything that isn't development.

It was easy enough for rebecca's dad to use right away, included audio software (both simple and advanced), both mac and PC, and USB and line level outputs. It isn't amazing or anything, but it works. I am going to borrow it and rip a bunch of my vinyl that I have been missing. Should be fun to have all that old chicago punk from my high school years readily available.