This BlogPost is August

This entry is brought to you by:

Hell, for 8 bucks you can't afford not to buy it!

I suppose writing, "This entry is brought to you by," suggests I am being paid in some way for promoting Arcade Fire's new album. I can assure you, I am not. I wish I was, though.

<------- click there and benefit me and yourself as well, my friend...

August has been a ride. This whole summer has been a ride. Now that I think about it, this whole life has been a ride. What kind of ride, I'm not sure, but a ride nonetheless.

School is back in session which means both myself and my wife are busier. That's not an entirely bad thing. It just sucks that we don't have dinner together as much as we'd like. I love being with her as much as possible. Yesterday I didn't see her from 6:30 AM to 9:30 PM and I was home way early last night. If I work a dinner shift during the workweek it means I'll see her for a little bit in the morning, kiss her while she's sleeping when I come home at night, wake up with her, kiss her goodbye, and see her again 12 hours later, sleeping, then I kiss her, and I miss her dearly and I wonder what the fuck's going on...

...and then happiness wells up in me, all the way to my eyeballs, eye-hole deep in cool, cleansing waters. Love. Love is what the fuck's going on. We work hard for love. Why else would you get up in the morning?

In other exciting MitchellG news, I've been using the heck out of Foursquare. Does it mean I'm messed up if I want to share with the world where I am? A voice crying in the wilderness...

My Foursquare usage has been entirely driven by my acquisition of a Motorola Droid. What a fun, useful device. I'm using it to get more organized. My personal time management is not one of my strong areas. I'm working on it, though. Taking advantage of the calendar feature has already helped me stay on top of things. And I've signed up with Mint to better manage my money. We'll see how that goes.

Speaking of making better use of my time...

Peace,
mitchellg

The Business of Zune Musings

Came across this at Beyond Binary:

Why did Microsoft get in the Zune business? Why is it an important business to be in?
Belfiore: We think the possibilities for creating value for people around how they are entertained...is incredibly important. The potential for doing great things for people is huge. It can affect a wide range of devices, from portable devices that you carry around to devices that are hooked up to your TV to devices that look like what you think of as your PC or laptop today. We aspire to really making people's lives better in the way they are entertained. Being able to create those connections between people and get them content on whatever kind of device it is, we think is important and compelling and worth doing.

Joe Belfiore is apparently the guy in charge of the Zune for Microsoft. Whatever. I just want to pick at his words a bit.

His first response to the question of "Why is MS in this business?" is the stupendously obvious "To make money." Duh. That's what "creating value" means.

Then he says they want to do "great things". Wow. Walkmen...er iPods...er Zunes or whatever are now on the same level as feeding the poor and providing clean water for everybody. Those are great things.

The next sentence he's saying that they can defeat Apple by spreading the Microsoft...er Zune music experience across a wider and more popular selection of devices...and reach more people...and make more money. The Zune mission encompasses MP3 players, TVs, and computers. What about Zune theaters?

They want to improve people's entertainment experience. I'm all for that. Tough to pick on that one.

They want to connect people by the music they listen to and movies they watch. OK. He reiterates that their efforst are not limited to the Zune device itself. It's like Zune is Microsoft's codename for Entertainment. "We will entertain the people in every facet of their life and we will commodify it and connect people via their interests to create more profitable ad networks and virtual parties and we will call it Zune." Or is that XBox?

I'm confused.

Here's to Us

Whoever knows how many minutes ago my phone lit up and played Blind Melon's No Rain, one of my favorite songs and the ringtone assigned to my lovely ladyfriend, the love of my life. She hesitantly inquired if I would deliver a drink to her, as she'd forgotten one. My first reaction was total panic. I was truly freaked out at first. All the trauma of 12+ years of public schooling poured over me like an avalanche of upside-down port-a-potties. Rage. Hate. I didn't want to go anywhere near that school.

Then I thought of my girlfriend, the greatest girl of my life. Almost as fast as the disarray swept over me it was gone and ordered was restored. The object of my affections is drinkless. I must save the day. It is my duty. I love her.

And the Hellfire scene subsided and was replaced by beauty, reason, truth, and love...nebulous, but altogether good, sensations of inner warmth and clarity...a mission.

The sky is that glorious shade of blue that keeps me stuck right here in Pensacola FL, happily. I love that stuff, this air, these breezes, the light, the warmth...

Here's to the lovers out there, and here's to Us.

YouTube's Bubbly Video Discovery Device

Genocide ringtone? That was one of the AdSense ads which appeared last time I looked at my blog. For all I know it'll be there when you view this. Anyway, that cracks me up bigtime. It just seems so shameless and almost offensive. How'd it get there? Well, there are/were a bunch of Darfur-related ads popping up because of my Sudan reference:

Iraq gettin to be old news? Afghanistan and Pakistan are played out? Iran's repetitive? North Korea not all that interesting? Want to branch out from the only African country you care about, Sudan? How about Chad as your next Big Cause?

As you can see, mention Sudan and AdSense will serve up an ad for Genocide Ringtones. Amazing.

My original intent when creating this post was to share this awesome video of Mad Season playing November Hotel:

As I was sitting here soaking in the greatness of their performance, I decided to expand the video to a full screen. Then I could soak it in even more. While floating on the waves of the glorious music and watching the musicians as if they were angels come to transport me to a holy place, I noticed a button along the bottom-left of the screen.

I clicked it.

The music stopped and the video-still shrunk to a little bubble in the center of a black screen. When I hovered the mouse over the bubble, a window popped up giving the title and band. OK. Then a bubble appeared above it. I couldn't quite tell who was in it so I hovered over it and found that it was a link to a video for Kiss's Detroit Rock City. As I hovered over it, a bazillion more bubbles popped up linking to other videos.

It's an interesting interface and discovery device. I'd never seen it before. Anyone know more about YouTube's bubbly video discovery device?

Thank You, God, for 2007 and Beyond

2007 was good to me.  2008 will be even better.

Here's my 2007 according to Last.fm:

Tool, 311, The Roots, Slightly Stoopid, A Perfect Circle, The Doors, Third Eye Blind...I'd say that sums up my year in at least a few ways.  I saw Tool and 311 this year.  Good deal.  Saw Matisyahu, too.

2007 ends with me being happier than I've ever been in my whole life except for maybe when I was a little kid without a care. I've met the woman of my dreams and I have a great family and I have great friends and the world in general as been exceptionally good to me my whole life. What have I to complain about? Life is good. Thank God for 2007. Thank God for 2008 and beyond. Thank God for life.