15 years ago
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Robb of the Day IX - This is me all the time.
Seriously, I read more than I see my girlfriend. I probably put in more hours reading in a week than I actually do productive work while on the clock.
Musings on music
This wasn't originally intended to be an actual post but went on too long for the comments section.
It's funny that Robb mentions headphones and stereotypical listening habits as I often wonder the same thing. Now granted, I haven't been on a bus in about 20 years. Being that I have a car...and am not a hippie, I have little opportunity to use public transportation. However, I do spend a few hours at the gym every week. (Side note for Robb:that's the place where people go to get some exercise. Not to be confused with a gay bath house).
The gym is also an interesting place to play the headphone guessing game. All walks of life wander around there, a good percentage of them in their own blissful music oblivion. Some do seem rather obvious, but others are downright perplexing. Let's take Robb for example. You've all seen the Robb pics of the day. Let's picture him on a southbound Clark street bus wearing his Kangol and other Robb hippiewear. I can see him sitting there unknowingly mouthing the words to something. Rap , emo, Bjork...who can tell? Maybe books on tape...
As for me, I am indeed a huge Rick Springfield fan. His new album is etitled Venus in Overdrive and will be out on July 29th. Amazon has it available for preorder if you're interested. I heard a few songs at his show a couple months ago. He still sounds great. I'd like to thank Robb for giving me this opportunity to plug the new CD.
This being said, I haven't rocked any Rick on my mp3 in quite some time. Could be that at the gym I look for a slightly different sound. Lately it has been the recent Alkaline Trio release Irony and Agony, The Lawrence Arms and The Spill Canvas. All of which you can check out at lastfm.com.
If you're not familiar with lastfm it's a free website where you can stream full songs to your pc from all musical artists. It offers suggestions for other artists based on what you choose to listen to.
So here's what I'd like to do. If you can be bothered to, post the last three things that you listened to in the comments section. Or email your photo via the handy link at the top p the page and we'll let Robb take a guess.
One other note....yes I would imagine that this blog comes off a tad boring at times. I will say this though, it has and continues to provide me with minutes of mindless entertainment every week. And after all what is life other than an endless search to amuse ourselves.
What have we done?
Jesus, it just occurred to me that the only thing more boring than me blogging would have to be me and Livius blogging.
But I'll make a vague attempt at being interesting. I was having great thoughts and inspirations this morning, and I forgot them until just now. Hence, the post.
I was thinking this morning, as I rode the #22 bus north on Clark, that I always try to imagine what people are listening to when I see them with headphones. Then I got to thinking how biased my guesses were based on the person's appearance.
Some people do my work for me. The kids blasting the latest hip hop are tough to miss. But, then there's the thirty-somethings in business gear on their way to (presumably) the office. They can't all be listening to Kenny G, can they?
So, I have made it one of my many doomed-to-be-unfulfilled missions to get snapshots of people in their commute rocking out, and survey what it is they're listening to. The goal of course, would be to either confirm that my biases are generally justified, or to dispel the myth.
Livius, of course, will be tipping the scales in favor of biases being justified. He totally looks like he's jammin out to Rick Springfield.
But I'll make a vague attempt at being interesting. I was having great thoughts and inspirations this morning, and I forgot them until just now. Hence, the post.
I was thinking this morning, as I rode the #22 bus north on Clark, that I always try to imagine what people are listening to when I see them with headphones. Then I got to thinking how biased my guesses were based on the person's appearance.
Some people do my work for me. The kids blasting the latest hip hop are tough to miss. But, then there's the thirty-somethings in business gear on their way to (presumably) the office. They can't all be listening to Kenny G, can they?
So, I have made it one of my many doomed-to-be-unfulfilled missions to get snapshots of people in their commute rocking out, and survey what it is they're listening to. The goal of course, would be to either confirm that my biases are generally justified, or to dispel the myth.
Livius, of course, will be tipping the scales in favor of biases being justified. He totally looks like he's jammin out to Rick Springfield.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Gainful Employment
Well, the days off sunning myself at Starbucks are close to an end. I have accepted a position with a large office supply retailer. Thanks to federal privacy acts I didn't need to disclose my love for fuzzy boots and my strong desire to own a midget. Thus, assuming my heroin binges and crack usage of late dont show up on the mandated drug screening and no one discovers the corpses of 4 girl scouts in my basement, I will be returning to the ranks of retail management on August 4th.
I have mixed feelings about returning to work. I initially saw my demise with my former employer as a setback and brooded over it for some time. But this opportunity to start over with a new employer has brightened my outlook on the world. New ladders to climb, new challeges to overcome and best of all a different type of customer. Hell, I'm a bit excited about it!
On the other hand, I will miss reading 4 books a week and spending countless hours perplexing baristas who must often wonder how I can spend entire days on their patio. It seems I'll have to return to some type of normal sleep pattern which may prove to be challenging. And wearing pants....pants may be tough.
I will continue to maintain this blog along with other writing projects I've begun undertaking. Hey...you never know, my new employment may become fodder for this little infant blog. Stay tuned, I may soon be boring you with stories from the underbelly of the office supply industry.
Sent via BlackBerry probably from outside Starbucks
I have mixed feelings about returning to work. I initially saw my demise with my former employer as a setback and brooded over it for some time. But this opportunity to start over with a new employer has brightened my outlook on the world. New ladders to climb, new challeges to overcome and best of all a different type of customer. Hell, I'm a bit excited about it!
On the other hand, I will miss reading 4 books a week and spending countless hours perplexing baristas who must often wonder how I can spend entire days on their patio. It seems I'll have to return to some type of normal sleep pattern which may prove to be challenging. And wearing pants....pants may be tough.
I will continue to maintain this blog along with other writing projects I've begun undertaking. Hey...you never know, my new employment may become fodder for this little infant blog. Stay tuned, I may soon be boring you with stories from the underbelly of the office supply industry.
Sent via BlackBerry probably from outside Starbucks
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
TV, the solitary sport
I read a book yesterday that consisted of intertwined short stories spanning 30 years that took place in a small Ohio town. The book is called Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. Its a quick read and very well written. I'm going to highly recommend this book to those of you that might read. This book is also what kept me from an update yesterday.
While reading these stories I came across a couple of mentions of a TV show called Armchair Theater. Originally a British show, it was revived by ABC in the early 70's. The author passingly mentions a characters comfort at knowing that all the neighbors would all be watching the same movie as he was.
Although I'm not old enough to have lived through the time period during which these particular stories took place it did strike a chord in me. You see, I am old enough to remember pre-cable. The cool thing about TV before cable was that if you watched something on TV there was a high percentage chance that you could have a conversation about it with someone the next day. It seemed to bring people together in conversation. Movies of the week or a miniseries were things to tune into because people would be talking about them the next day. While I was in elementary school there were 3 major networks and 3 minor networks. That was it, 6 choices. At the outset of cable there was a company called OnTV. They offered exactly one movie channel. This had a similar effect. Everyone that had OnTV watched the same primetime movie and shared their opinions with friends and family the next day. It was nice.
The advent of cable was spectacular. 100 channels! Specialty chanels, sport channels ad movie channels...it was a TV junkies dream come true. The choices went from 6 to 106. And no two people you knew tuned in to the same thing.
Channel surfing became a more solitary sport. Sure people still watched Monday night football and other top rated TV shows but the choices made it hard to share a viewing experience with others. When I was younger I watched a lot of TV because I could talk about it with others much like I wish I could do now with books
I gave up TV for the most part for a few years finding the programming weak and lacking. Only over the last 4 years or so have I reimmersed myself in television. And although I do find that there is programming I love, I find that its not very often that it's open to discussion with others. Television over the last 20 years has become something you watch and chew over....alone.
Sent via BlackBerry probably from outside Starbucks
Robb of the Day VII - Robb OLSEN - HA!
Did a Google search, and found this handsome chap. So there you go, your Robb of the day.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Out in public...
Its funny the things you see and the realizations you make when you're home away from home is a public place.
As I was sitting at Starbucks with a friend today, our attention was drawn to the road where we were sure we would find a car full of screeching teenagers. Much to our surprise the commotion was caused by an adult male who was shrieking rather unintelligible words and flailing his arms about. He was 10 or 15 cars back from a red light and causing quite a scene. At this point a woman, I'm assuming was his wife and three children proceeded to exit the vehicle and walk away from him. This seemed to further infuriate the driver who then began pounding his fists on the steering wheel and flinging his body back into his seat. The shrieking at this point sounded much like a female victim in a particularly loud slasher flick. Once his family(?) was out of the car he attempted to pull over almost hitting or of the children. Seeing that this wouldn't get him clear of the road he very quickly pulled into the parking lot adjacent to where we were sitting. Getting out of the car he began his tirade again as he started walking next to the woman. The woman was very calm during this whole time even pausing to light a cigarette as this lunatic was demanding she get back in the car. We lost sight of them for a bit and 5 minutes later they returned to car and drove off.
Needless to say this was fairly entertaining until I realized that woman and childrens calm demeanor was probably due to the fact that this wasn't the first time they'd seen this type behavior.
The other observation I made at Starbucks today is that when deaf people drop change they don't realize it. Nor do they notice their dog's incessant whining.
The things you learn at Starbucks...
Sent via BlackBerry probably from outside Starbucks
As I was sitting at Starbucks with a friend today, our attention was drawn to the road where we were sure we would find a car full of screeching teenagers. Much to our surprise the commotion was caused by an adult male who was shrieking rather unintelligible words and flailing his arms about. He was 10 or 15 cars back from a red light and causing quite a scene. At this point a woman, I'm assuming was his wife and three children proceeded to exit the vehicle and walk away from him. This seemed to further infuriate the driver who then began pounding his fists on the steering wheel and flinging his body back into his seat. The shrieking at this point sounded much like a female victim in a particularly loud slasher flick. Once his family(?) was out of the car he attempted to pull over almost hitting or of the children. Seeing that this wouldn't get him clear of the road he very quickly pulled into the parking lot adjacent to where we were sitting. Getting out of the car he began his tirade again as he started walking next to the woman. The woman was very calm during this whole time even pausing to light a cigarette as this lunatic was demanding she get back in the car. We lost sight of them for a bit and 5 minutes later they returned to car and drove off.
Needless to say this was fairly entertaining until I realized that woman and childrens calm demeanor was probably due to the fact that this wasn't the first time they'd seen this type behavior.
The other observation I made at Starbucks today is that when deaf people drop change they don't realize it. Nor do they notice their dog's incessant whining.
The things you learn at Starbucks...
Sent via BlackBerry probably from outside Starbucks
Robb of the day VI - Iconic Macedonia Picture
I am so vain, I printed an 8 x 10 picture that I 'shopped and hung it on my wall in my bedroom.
This is so, when I die, everyone will know what pictures of me need to be used in posters and memorial websites, T-shirts and all that.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
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