Category: Diversions

Woot!

Diversions

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My daughter Katie has been saying ‘Woot‘ a lot recently. Confused at first, I’ve learned it’s a good thing. A positive exclamation. An interjection! I thought it was something unique to her and her friends, but as my friend, Chuq Yang pointed out in his blog, Merriam-Webster included ‘Woot’ among their top ten Favorite Words (That Are Not in the Dictionary). The Urban Dictionary has 53 definitions of ‘woot’. I have tried to start using it, but I think Katie’s embarrassed when I do and I’d hate to be responsible for ruining this non-word for her.

There’s another bit of evolutionary language that we’ve watched spread into common usage among our children and their friends; versing. They have taken the preposition versus, and turned it into a verb. Now I’m no anal-grammarian or anything (I just had to look preposition up, I sure don’t remember it among my Schoolhouse Rock favorites, but I guess there was one). But hearing my son say something like, “Today we’re versing that team that beat us before”, still kinda grates on me. Apparently this isn’t a local phenomenon either, they’re versing down under as well.

update: in the comments; Katie insists that the proper spelling is ‘Whoot‘, and Ben has pointed out a good article on w00t in Wikipedia.

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Ringo Wins iTunes Song Survivor!

Diversions, Music

From among the 1,754 ‘never played’ songs in my iTunes library, and after ten weeks time to listen to their cumulative 4.4 days of playing time, Six O’Clock (the extended version) from Ringo Starr’s 1974 album Goodnight Vienna was the last remaining unplayed song in my library, and is the winner of iTunes Song Survivor.

The song was written by Paul and Linda McCartney and is, I think, a pretty good tune. It is a love song in which a man, lying next to his wife/girlfriend/lover? who has just fallen asleep at 6:00 AM, regretfully laments the fact that he doesn’t treat her as well as he should or could.

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iTunes Song Survivor: The Final 30

Diversions, Music
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Back in February I shared my iTunes diversion for creating a ‘Never Played’ smartlist in iTunes, and then randomly listening away as song were played and removed from the list. Well, we’re down to the final 30 songs as of this afternoon, less than two hours of music left before we determine the winner of this round of iTunes Song Survivor.

Name Artist
Art Of Heartbreak Hall & Oates
Be With You Bangles
Bright Future In Sales Fountains Of Wayne
Girl Trouble (Demo) Violent Femmes
I’m Going to Go Back There Someday (Muppets From Space Version) (Featuring The Great Gonzo) The Muppets
It’s All Over Now The Rolling Stones
Living In China Men Without Hats
Lookin’ Out Forever Paul Westerberg
Louie Louie The Clash
Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer Three Dog Night
No More Mr. Nice Guy Alice Cooper
Out Of The Business The Tubes
Party In My Pants Barnes & Barnes
Pretty Girls Joe Jackson
Radio Cure Wilco
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting Elton John
Shake A Tail Feather Mitch Ryder
Siamese Twins (The Monkey And Me) The Knack
Sister Mary Elephant Cheech & Chong
Six O’Clock (Extended Version) Ringo Starr
Sixteen Blue The Replacements
Sun/C79 Cat Stevens
Sunshine Of Your Love Eric Clapton
Supersonic Rocket Ship The Kinks
Temporary Thing Lou Reed
That’s Life Frank Sinatra
The Last Time The Rolling Stones
The Nightfly Donald Fagen
Too Much Elvis Presley
You Haven’t Done Nothin’ Stevie Wonder
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National Teacher Day

Diversions, Work

Here I am worried about dropping the ball with less than a week to go before Mother’s Day, and now I’ve learned from Google this morning that today is National Teacher’s Day! My mom is a teacher who teaches teachers. And my wife returned to her elementary school special education classroom last year, where she gives her students the same love and attention she gives our own children. They are both wonderful teachers whose students are lucky to have them, and who I love and appreciate very much.

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Tivo Wishlist Roulette

Diversions, Television

Rick Klau has shared a fun idea he found in The Onion, Tivo Wishlist Roulette. Pick a word and enter it as a Tivo WishList set to auto-record any matching programs. Then sit back and enjoy the anticipation while waiting to see what your Tivo will find.

Looking for a purely random experience, I didn’t want to pick my own word, so I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary: Word of the Day page to find mine. Today’s word: slant.

Stay tuned for the results! (I can hear you now, “Get a life Chris!”)

Update: Oh the irony! In looking for something random, I got what I already had. The only program that the keyword ‘slant’ added to my Tivo’s ‘To-Do’ list was The Daily Show with John Stewart, a program I already Tivo and watch religiously. The reason? The show’s description says it provides a ‘humorous slant’ on daily news. There you have it.

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And I’m ‘Almost’ Old!

Diversions, News

So, as the previous post points out, I live in the state whose population is growing fatter faster than the other forty-nine.

And now, the Supreme Court has made it official that I’m just months shy of turning ‘old’.

“In a victory for older workers, the Supreme Court concluded Wednesday that people over 40 can sue for alleged age discrimination under a less burdensome legal standard of proof.”

Supreme Court eases way for age discrimination suits
CNN.com, 3/30/05

At my job, I expect such age discrimination may first go on display come softball season when my co-workers are likely to put me in right field or on the bench. Then again, that’s where I played when I was eight as well, hmmm.

Regardless, I’m doomed to be fat and old. What a week! Next stop, male pattern baldness!

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Mr. T in my Pocket

Diversions

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We received an unexpected package from my brother this weekend, with two gifts he sent for no particular reason other than he knew they would be enjoyed.

The first gift was a Mr. T in Your Pocket. This small orange speaker (with convienient keychain attached), has six buttons on it, each of which plays a different Mr. T saying. The package attest to the genuiness of the recordings saying, “It’s My Real Voice, Fool!”. I don’t know how I got by without one before, it’s great for so many situations when you really need to summon the voice of Mr. T to say what you’re thinking… Shut Up, Fool!

The second gift was the complete series of the early 1970’s children’s program, Lidsville, on DVD. I watched the first episode with my kids last night, and it kinda freaked me out that this was something I spent my Saturday mornings watching as a kid. You remember Lidsville, the kid (Butch Patrick, better known as Eddie Munster in his younger days) falls into a magician’s hat and is trapped in a land of hat people. Bad trip! But remember, it was Sid n’ Marty Kroft who also brought us H.R. Pufnstuff. We’ll see how far we get into this collection, but Lidsville may prove to be one childhood memory better left forgotten.

But thanks just the same bro for the cool gifts!

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How Rich Are You?

Diversions, Web Surfin'
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How rich are you? >>

 

I’m loaded.
It’s official.
I’m the 36,007,565 richest person on earth!

Here’s a great site to help you start the week feeling good. Find out how rich you are on The Global Rich List, a web site on which you can enter your annual income and see a calculation on how you compare with every other person on the planet.

It’s an interesting exercise, and important reminder of how fortunate you really are. Certainly other measures such as health, happiness and quality of life are at least as important that a straight dollar tally. But even though my wallet is empty and I’m packing my lunches this week, it’s nice to learn that I’m among the top 0.6% richest people in the world! I need to work at clawing my way into the exclusive ‘Top 35 Million Club’. Later, next week I’m eating out!

thanks to Nathaniel for sharing the link

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iTunes Song Survivor

Diversions, Music
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Here’s a diversion I came up with for having some fun with your iTunes music library. One statistic that iTunes tracks for the songs in your library is ‘play count’, and it’s used in creating some smart playlists such as the ‘Top 25 Most Played’ list.

I’ve used it to create a different smart playlist called ‘Never Played’ (set ‘play count’ is 0, live updating = on). It gives me a list of all the songs in my library that have never been played, that automatically shrinks as soon as one of the songs in the list has been played. With that, you’re ready to play iTunes Song Survivor. Turn ‘shuffle’ on, so that iTunes plays songs in random order, and listen to your ‘Never Played’ list. One by one, your list will shrink. Which song will be last?
Of the 5,235 songs in my iTunes library, 1,754 have never been played. That’s 4.4 days worth of rarely heard cuts here on my own digital juke (currently playing ‘Goodnight Irene’ by James Booker’). I played iTunes Song Survivor once before, and found a silver lining in the corruption of my library file a few months back in that I got to start the game all over again. Stay tuned for word of the final song survivor to be announced here whenever that happens.

4/23/05 – Update – 300 Songs to go! Currently playing, “Down at the Laundrymat” from Pass the Dust, I Think I’m Bowie by Black Randy & the Metrosquad.

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