Safe As Milk

I did much more of this list than I thought I would in 2004.

I lost track of it a little bit after the Summer but I’m going to try to take another crack at it for 2005. There’s no way I’m going to get to 105 items, but I bet I can get to 50 comfortably, especially with the batch I’m going to recycle from 2004.

I got 39 of them done. Not great, but far from slacking, IMO.

I’m looking forward to making 2005’s list. Maybe I’ll get it posted before Valentine’s Day this year…

“Continue reading” to see what got marked off the list.
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Amazon.com has made it very easy to donate to the American Red Cross’ relief efforts. Please, help if you can.

Brian Wilson “Smile”
Neko Case “The Tigers Have Spoken”
Wilco “A Ghost Is Born”
The Streets “A Grand Don’t Come For Free”
Scissor Sisters s/t
The Arcade Fire “Funeral”
The Zutons “Who Kiled The…”
Rilo Kiley “More Adventurous”
Nellie McKay “Get Away From Me”
Rogue Wave “Out of the Shadow”
Jem “Finally Woken”
Drive By Truckers “The Dirty South”

I had immediately noticed a lack of warmth in the song playback (yes, even with my ears). I’ve decided that the problem is the bitrate at which I had ripped my collection. Using iTunes, which is great for the purpose, I had ripped my collection at 224 kbps, with select albums done at 320. When doing this sort of testing, my three reference songs are always R.E.M.’s “Find the River”, Pink Martini’s “Amado Mio”, and Tori Amos’s “China”. Not an exhaustive test, because the songs are fairly similar. But they’re complex and warm enough for my purposes, as well as favorites.
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Well, that was pretty easy! I installed the SlimDevices Squeezebox in about a half-hour, and I wasn’t really rushing. It would have been faster if I had read the instructions first. Yes, I’m an American.
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I am far from a hardcore gamer. I really only like to play sports games and racing games, and even then I don’t get way into them like some guys do. I bought RSC2 on a lark (that you can read about it the “continue reading” link below) and, so far, I am pretty happy with it. I’ve been playing it like crazy for the last couple of days.

RSC2 is a rally-type racing game which means that you do most of your racing off the track. It’s different from what I am used to but it’s starting to grow on me. The game plays fast as hell, it gets genuinely disorienting at times. It’s cool! I can’t remember a racing game that’s given me that feeling before (I get it all the time when I am FPS-ing). The game has a nice balance between arcade-type racing and a straight sim. Some reviews I’ve read poo poo the arcadiness of it but that’s a positive in my book. I want a game I can play, I don’t want to have to worry about what gear I’m in I just want to hammer the throttle and hope to heck I make that next turn.

There is also an xBox Live option with RSC2 that I haven’t gotten to yet. I’m looking forward to trying online racing. If I can get that together I’ll let you know how it comes out.
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From the site:

“‘Floating Logos’ is a working title for this project. The images are inspired by signs perched high atop very tall poles in order for people to view them from a very long distance. The poles are digitally removed from the image in order to give the illusion that the signs are disconnected from the ground as they ominously float above us.”

[another great link from kottke]

Another thing we do, as a family, at Christmas is have crackers at Christmas dinner. If you don’t know, crackers are basically cardboard tubes wrapped in Christmas paper that have a small toy, a paper hat, and a joke or fortune on a piece of paper tucked inside. It’s an English tradition that my mother has taken to and we always have some good fun with it.

Especially with the paper hats.

And I got a Giants knit hat. But you’ll need to click “continue reading” to see me in it. I don’t recommend it around lunch time.
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I’m going to bed.