A Quote!

"You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." - Frank Sobotka from The Wire. Season 2, Episode 11

So true.

The Tallest Man on Earth

Recently, I've gone to the grand old Amoeba Music in good ol' Hollywood. It's a great place.The place has everything - cassettes, LPs, vinyls, posters. They have everything you'd ever want in a music store. The employees are very, very knowledgeable about their music. It's the first time I've heard of requests over the store's speakers for "an expert in the White Stripes" or "someone who knows their LPs". If you're ever in the area, you should definitely drop by and pick up some stuff. It's bound to be an experience.

I hadn't gone to a music store recently, so I splurged a little on CDs. I decided to be daring and to get a couple CDs of artists that I had heard of, but never really took the time to listen. One of the albums I got was The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man On Earth. Although I wasn't really enjoying it on the first two listens, I am now able to see why people like his music. In fact, I would like to say I'm a convert.

One thing that he's very good at is conveying emotion. From the phrasing of his lyrics to the arrangement of the instruments, it is evident that his music is heartfelt and not the contrived emotions that are often heard on songs that fill the radio. In the darkest passages, you can hear the pain in his voice. Throughout the album, there are passages marked with joy, happiness, and laughter. Occasionally, his voice trails off into the distance, making the lyrics seem like an afterthought. Perhaps, these are a reflection of his emotions. At any rate, some may find that his voice is the most repelling feature, but it's the thing that attracts me the most to his music. With all that said, put his album on your record player for a whirl or two. Give a man and his guitar a chance.

Here's a video of a song that's not on The Wild Hunt, but is a song that I enjoyed a lot.

"With all this fever in my mind I should aim for your kerosene eyes
Oh, you're just a target in the sky
Where do my bluebirds fly?"

Concerts and Such

Alongside of 3,999 people, I got to see Mumford and Sons last night. It was quite spectacular. Most people were obviously fervent fans and had memorized the lyrics to just about every song. The crowd had an amazing energy and vibe to it. Lot's of people were singing and just having a blast. Thankfully, the people around me were quite melodic in their singing. A very fun, solid concert. I'd go into greater detail about what went on, but I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.

I do, however, have two complaints. First off, whether you're with your significant other or with a friend, there is no need to talk throughout most of the concert. Honestly, I don't care to hear your commentary on every song and the arrangement of the band members. Nor do I care to hear you explain to your significant other what instrument the musicians played at the end of every song. Second, I do not care to watch the concert on your iPod or camera. I mean if I wanted to watch it on some screen, I could just buy a DVD and hang out at home. It's really not necessary for you to tape the entire concert is it?

At any rate, if you have the chance, check out Mumford and Sons. Give it a listen.

[A suggestion for future concerts: Perhaps, we should have general admission coordinated by the height of the people. Ideally, the general order would allow the short people to be given priority to enter the concert venue first. I'm guessing this group would generally consist of Asians. I wasn't that short at this concert, but I did notice a few people that were just a few inches below the average height...]

A Quote!

Another useless fact that doesn't get you any farther in life, but you'll probably remember it...

"Unbelievable as it may sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow typists. When improvements in typewriters eliminated the problem of jamming, trials in 1932 with an efficiently laid-out keyboard showed that it would let us double our typing speed and reduce our typing effort by 95 percent. But QWERTY keyboards were solidly entrenched by then. The vested interests of hundreds of millions of QWERTY typists, typing teachers, and computer salespeople, and manufacturers crushed all moves towerd keyboard efficiency for over 60-years." - Diamond, Jared in Guns, Germs, and Steel.

For the record, this book is not about keyboards...

Passion

Being passionate about your work does strange things to you. It's one thing when you don't really care about how your work reflects you, but when you do, things are wildly different. My work has become exciting in a strange way. Whereas most of the work I was given before was done to a degree that I knew would be sufficient, the work I do now, I'd like to think, is definitely done to the best of my abilities.

On the other hand, it's taught me something about who I am. Clearly, it's good when I don't put out my all - as it shows me in a light that isn't positive. Somehow, I have to motivate myself to do my best despite the fact that what I'm doing isn't what I'd want to be doing. I need to train myself to be able to give forth my best in whatever I do.

On Procrastination

Just an interesting quote I found online while reading this article (Later by James Surowiecki) in the New Yorker:

"The philosopher Mark Kingwell puts it in existential terms: “Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” In that sense, it might be useful to think about two kinds of procrastination: the kind that is genuinely akratic and the kind that’s telling you that what you’re supposed to be doing has, deep down, no real point."

Salesman Pete

I've come across this video that's pretty entertaining. So here it is:

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.