The digital revolution

A couple of weeks ago, I caught the video for the White Rabbits on Late Night.

If you were in my classroom for the next few days after that, I'm sure you remember because I played the song "Percussion Gun" pretty constantly.

I'd played the YouTube video a few dozen times over, and I wanted to hear more. My first instinct was to open up iTunes and see if I could buy the song.

No popping open the library website...

No asking students if anybody has the cd to borrow...

No checking their website.

Straight to iTunes to buy the cd.

Because iTunes has made it easy and legal and relatively cheap, I was willing to buy the entire album sight unseen, something that would have been anathema to me even a year ago. I didn't, but my first instinct certainly was to do such.

I've always been a cautious music buyer, purchasing albums in only two situations - a small cadre of my favorite artists (at various times, Neil Young, Wilco, Lyle Lovett, the Beasties, John Mellencamp, etc) put out something new or I'd borrowed and heard almost an entire album from a not yet established band (they need the cash and the promotional love) and enjoyed about 75%+ of the album.

Most of the rest of the new music I would get, I got by checking out the cd and grabbing the one...two...eight songs that I liked from the album. Sure, it wasis illegal, but I justified it in my head that in any of a half dozen ways (it's only a little illegal...they've already got a bunch of money...I go to their concerts anyway...the record company would just get most of the money...it's easy). I still do all of that, sure, but my first instinct now if just to pop open iTunes and pay for the music.

The music people have clearly won with me, at least.

I've gone from being willing to steal the music - not quite to the extent of Napster and Limewire, but steal it none the less, I know - to being willing to give them my money because they've made it so frickin' easy.

This is a musical revolution the likes of which I've certainly never known in my lifetime. I was born in the era of the 8-track, came of age at the dawn of the cassette, and became a music consumer in the time of the cd. Of those, only the cassette could have possibly scared the music industry in the same way that the switch to music without a physical housing has done. They knew that once the cassette came into being, the power for people to copy - and even chop up and rearrange - their music had been unleashed and the record companies would never again be the same for it.

The cd revolution swung the other way, favoring the music companies because the cd was static, unyielding, and pricier. There was no way - for a decade, anyway - for us to take music from a cd, maintain the cd-quality sound, and do anything to alter the package. You bought the album, you might loan out the full cd, but you couldn't make a mix cd. You couldn't copy a cd onto another cd. Onto a cassette? Sure, but that wasn't the point. Cds were cooler - better sound, more durable packaging, neater and shinier than cassettes.

But then came the digital revolution. We could take music from cd without losing any bit of sound quality, save it to our computers, make new cds or send the music out through the ether to any of a half million of our closest friends with almost no effort at all.

And the music industry was screwed...and scared...and angry.

They started to sue. Every transgression was viewed as grand larceny, a single event of file sharing was accused of being tantamount to stealing the entire album masters and was prosecuted in the same way.

...until a few industrious souls found ways to let the freedom of the music stay but to let those of us who would rather do the right thing, rather do the legal thing simply pay for that freedom.

At first there were hiccups - drm and Apple's instance on the AAC formatting being the most painful - but I feel I'm fairly safe to say that those hiccups have largely been passed by, and we're ready to rock the digital music world.

We've got hard drives large enough to back up thousands and thousands of songs. The sound quality is outstanding. The music is portable on tiny players and in our cars.

Viva la digital, folks.

Check your head

There's been a whole bunch of new tunes in m'world recently, and I've been remiss in mentioning it to you.

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

It's not as much fun as the first album, admittedly, but it's not a bad second effort. Where Alright, Still was a mixture of three, four, and five star songs on my iTunes, this one's a whole bunch of fours without either the threes or fives.

Allen continues to be a hilarious writer whose choice of producer seems to have a fairly strong influence on the musical mood of the tune - Mark Ronson's highlights from the first disc are lacking here - and she turns her sharp tongue on some of the same old targets here - old boyfriends, in particular. But she also branches out some and - oddly - sounds almost more mature at times.

At this rate, she may actually turn into a reliable pop singer rather than an immature flame out - something I certainly wouldn't have guaranteed after her first album.

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Daft Punk - Alive 2007

Well, I certainly didn't expect that.

I grabbed this one because of the "Daft Hands" video and planned to just grab the one song and send back the rest of the stupid techno kraut disc.

First off, this is a live disc. I know, I should've gotten that from the title. I just wasn't paying attention. Library catalog says song on disc. Reserve disc. I'm like an automaton sometimes.

Then, there's the fact that the disc is awesome.

This is everything that I need dance/techno to be. It's got the driving, somewhat repetitive beats that are a must. But where Girl Talk takes the chance to throw in every single reference, sample, snapshot, high hat, one-word-quote, and drumb beat, Daft Punk stick with a single theme and explore its many variations. Daft Punk plays the game more like a classical composer initiating a theme and bringing that back throughout the composition, fading in and out on the tune but never leaving the theme entirely behind.

With this recording being a single, seamless concert recording, it also lets the duo show off their skills as djs letting the excitement ebb and flow, building to multiple crescendos throughout the recording but never falling dramatically, never crashing away with mixes and fades that don't work.

This should be a tutorial for every dance club dj.

And now I just want to check out their previous live effort, Alive 1997.

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U2 - No Line on the Horizon

Man, the reviews on this one have been all over the place...

...from The Onion - U2 might try to pass Horizon off as atmospheric, but it’s really just a grab bag of underdeveloped ideas that never seemed to command the band’s full attention.

from Hot Press - No Line On The Horizon is a mature, tender, reflective record of great musical variety, depth and beauty that could only have been made by four people who’ve experienced just about everything that life can throw at you

from NOW Magazine - The problems that litter No Line fall into two categories: mind-numbing blandness on the part of the band or embarrassing, face-palm-inducing vocal choices by Bono.

from Mojo - The result is a collage of several kinds of classic U2 album, one that has the beauty of their panoramic '80s Eno/Lanois recordings plus the synthetic experimentation and dalliances with pop merriment which revolutionized the band's modus operandi from "Achtung Baby" onwards.

Man, I don't know that I'd go to either of the extremes (masterpiece or piece of crap), but I safely say that I think it's far closer to the masterpiece side of things, and I'm thinking that we're going to have to start looking at U2 in the conversation of "Greatest Band Ever" because very few bands have been as productive at as high a level and with as much success in so many different styles as have the lads from Dublin.

The opening stanza from AllMusic's review is very telling of the band's releases:

A rock & roll open secret: U2 care very much about what other people say about them. Ever since they hit the big time in 1987 with The Joshua Tree, every album is a response to the last — rather, a response to the response, a way to correct the mistakes of the last album: Achtung Baby erased the roots rock experiment Rattle and Hum, All That You Can't Leave Behind straightened out the fumbling Pop, and 2009's No Line on the Horizon is a riposte to the suggestion they played it too safe on 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. After recording two new cuts with Rick Rubin for the '06 compilation U218 and flirting with will.i.am, U2 reunited with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois (here billed as "Danny" for some reason), who not only produced The Joshua Tree but pointed the group toward aural architecture on The Unforgettable Fire. Much like All That You Can't and Atomic Bomb, which were largely recorded with their first producer, Steve Lillywhite, this is a return to the familiar for U2, but where their Lillywhite LPs are characterized by muscle, the Eno/Lanois records are where the band take risks, and so it is here that U2 attempts to recapture that spacy, mysterious atmosphere of The Unforgettable Fire and then take it further.

This album does harken most closely back to the feeling of The Unforgettable Fire but through a very different lens, coming more than two decades after that album. I'm all down with the feelings of Unforgettable Fire; it was a hell of an album.

This one is, too.

The highlights for me all come in the first half of the album as the pace slows and the wanderings increase on what would be the second side - shout out to the old folks in the crowd (Calen, um...Calen).

This isn't Joshua Tree where it's spectacular from start to finish or even All That You Can't Leave Behind that found the band in arena rock mode again and finding themselves in the crosshairs of pop culture. This is the band trying to answer the charges of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb where they'd stayed on the straight and narrow center stripe for two straight albums.

And they can still make a hell of an album by taking a left turn...even when we should've expected it.

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Mark Ronson - Version

I don't know the original versions of the songs that Mark Ronson covers on this album, and from what I can tell in reading some of the reviews, that might be a good thing. A number of the reviews comment on how Ronson's production - as far as I know, his voice is never heard on the album as he has produced the tracks and written the music but brought in singers to man the vocals - has taken the originals and turned them on their heads, often entirely changing the feeling and meaning entirely.

I'm okay with that because he's made a blast of an album. From start to finish, the disc is fun, definitively British, pop fun. There are horns and beats and touches of reggae and ska and soul. It's a blast, man.

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Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (remastered)

It's a completist disease that I have.

Unless you're desperate for a full disc of b sides from this third Beastie album, steer clear of this one.

Me, I'm all down with it.

Heck, I'm the nutcase who even torrented Best of Grand Royal just to get my hands on as much Beastie stuff as I can.

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Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline - Popular Favorites 1976-1992

I could've probably named a half dozen Talking Heads songs - "Wild, Wild Life", "Burning Down the House", "Take Me to the River", "Psycho Killer", "Once in a Lifetime". I might've even managed "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere", but I would've been tapping into some serious brain cell storage space to go even that deep.

Because of this, my discovery that nearly every song on both discs of Sand in the Vaseline was a great find left me moderately and pleasantly surprised. "Girlfriend is Better" and "This Must be the Place" by themselves would have been worth the price of admission.

The first three songs on disc one weren't a great opening for me, leaning much too far into the arthouse scene of early seventies NYC, but once the songs became tuneful - around "Psycho Killer" on the listing - everything fell perfectly into place with wry lyrics, world beat influenced music, and David Byrne's rangy and unconventional voice diving into and out of any sort of reasonable range.

Another strong buy recommendation. Good week or month for music in my place.

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Wilco - Wilco (the live album preview)

Now this one's a little odd. It's a compilation from the people at OneThirtyBPM of live versions of as many songs from the forthcoming Wilco (the album) - which, of course, includes "Wilco (the song)". None of these songs have yet been released in any official capacity yet, and these are probably working versions of the songs, somewhat different, perhaps, than the final versions that will appear on the album when it's released in a couple of weeks.

Listening to these versions does whet my appetite for new Wilco, but it also puts the new songs out in versions that Wilco may not necessarily want to be the first versions that people get of the songs.

This is for fans only, but I do particularly enjoy the Colbert Report version of "Wilco (the song)", "I'll Fight", and "Sunny Feeling"

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Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown

Most of you reading this blog probably know that I consider American Idiot to be the best major label album of the decade so far - at least the best of the ones I've heard - admittedly a fairly limited selection.

When I saw Rolling Stone write that 21st Century Breakdown is even better, so masterful and confident it makes Idiot seem like a warm-up, I was fully, totally, and absolutely hooked and sold.

I will say that I feel Rolling Stone oversold Breakdown. It's a good album, a very good album showing a band trying to recapture the spirit of their previous album while also allowing themselves to stretch beyond the act of simple replication.

Before I get to any more of the review, I have a confession to admit:

I have absolutely no idea what the stories behind American Idiot or 21st Century Breakdown are...none at all.

Most of the time, I listen to the sound of the music not to the lyrics. The words are there, the words matter - especially when they're clever or funny (Lyle Lovett, Randy Newman) - and for many songs I can sing along hitting about 2/3 of the words correctly. But I rarely pay attention to what the words are actually saying, and I've never taken the time to listen through American Idiot with the goal of getting the full and total story. I just don't care. If I wanted to know the story, I'd read the words in a booklet.

Because of that, much of Idiot and Breakdown are probably lost on me. From the reviews that I've read, the story arc of Breakdown is more cohesive, more concrete when compared to Idiot's impressionistic, symbolic protagonists' journey, but I don't care. I don't know who St Jimmy or Whatshername or Jesus of Suburbia are or if they're the same people or not.

And I don't care.

I care that from the opening strains of "American Idiot" through to the closing strains of "Whatshername", I was grabbed and taken on a hell of a ride. Every song has hooks that are among the finest of Green Day's hook-laden career. These are hits with words that mean something. Their audience was huge, the album's sales massive more because they songs rocked than because the words were about Bush and the album was a return of the rock opera format.

And Breakdown doesn't have the same hooks.

It might be a 'better' album, a 'greater' album, a more complex album, but I don't like it as much. It shows that Green Day's reach continues to spread farther and wider, that they have something to say and want to make sure that their music is complex enough to convey the nuances of their words. Their tempo changes are admirable - in the middle of "Before the Lobotomy"'s and "21 Guns"'s titular lines, for example. "Last Night on Earth"'s underlying, almost reversed keyboard warble echos Sgt Pepper-era Beatles. The klezmer sounds on "Peacemaker" are unlike anything I've heard on a Green Day album before.

But I don't enjoy this album as much as I did Idiot.

When I'm in a bad mood and want to vent, when I'm in a mood to rock out, I put on American Idiot, and I can't see myself doing the same with 21st Century Breakdown even though it might be the 'better' album.

It's all about the worm

Check out Amazing Super Powers to find out what I'm talking about.

Mapping the fallen

Google Earth is phenomenal and is much, much more than its online cousin, Google Maps.

The biggest advantage to Google Earth is that it allows people to create their own layers, gathering data and tying it to physical locations, allowing people to view information in it's geographical context. You can create tours for people to take, record images of your favorite places, or you can Map The Fallen.

Sean of the Google Outreach Team (?) has spent the past four years creating a comprehensive, self-updating layer for Google Maps showing every coalition casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan since the US began fighting there in 2001.

For each casualty, an icon appears, allowing you to click and open up the full information on the fallen soldier - the date and location of their passing, their hometown, and their picture. With another click then, you can head to that soldier's hometown to see others who grew up with the young man or woman and who also lost their lives.

When more than one soldier died in a location, their icons are displayed in a growing arc. It's frightening to see the huge spiral of icons surrounding places like Baghdad.

I'll admit, though, that I headed directly for Barwanah, Iraq to find Chris.

---

Separately, I'd like to point out that this is an amazing piece of code writing and a phenomenal example of how data can be presented in revolutionary and affecting ways. The web has, yet again, blown my mind.

très étonné

The king is dead...

My commencement speech

Every year we get the same, cliche graduation speech...

Four years ago we came to PHS as young/goofy/ignorant/foolish/whatever freshmen. Now we're leaving as seniors who think we know everything.

We've made friends, and we'll keep some of them.

There were good time (insert in-joke here) including that time in the cafeteria/stairwell/hallway/classroom when (insert friend's name) did (insert embarrassing event here).

We have a lot more to learn from here.

It's not a problem that is, by any means, unique to Princeton, but it's something that drives me nuts every year. I at least respect when our valedictorians try to step off into uncharted territory and give something original. Sometimes it works brilliantly, and sometimes - like when one student brought up his annotated works of Shakespeare (or some other ye olde englishe authore) book out of which he continually quoted) it makes for a painful and mind-numbing ten minutes.

Personally, I think that we shouldn't reserve the graduation speech for the valedictorian every year. The skills that lead to a #1 class ranking are rarely the same skills that make for a dynamic speech writer or speaker.

We have an award-winning speech program and a number of impressive poets who would likely all give better, more engaging speeches that might actually entertain or inspire the crowd. It would be an easy enough process to have a few staff members audition speakers in the week or so leading up to graduation. Heck, we could even record the audition speeches and broadcast them on cable after the ceremony itself or include them on the grad DVD that we sell each year.

The best graduation speeches are rarely, if ever, a simple recap of the speaker's four years at the school - high school or university. They are a charge to go forward and accomplish something, a challenge to rise above the easy possibilities of the next step in life, an emotional recalling of the journey to get to the brink of that next step.

To that end, I offer up my commence speech for PHS's class of 2009.

Thank you, Mister Huynh for that introduction. Your dry wit will be missed.

Let me open with a simple and heart-felt congratulations and thank you to the families of these graduate candidates whom were are here to celebrate today. The congratulations is because you have raised - or helped raise - nearly four hundred of the finest young men and women that I have been privileged to know. The thank you is because you entrusted us, the Princeton City School District, with your most cherished possessions - your children - and allowed us to have a hand in helping you raise them. We thank you for that opportunity and are thrilled to have been able to work with you on our common goal of leading these young people to this night and beyond.

To that, I would add a second congratulations, this one to the graduates-to-be themselves. Many of you have reached this day only after impressive effort and dedication, completing homework with bleary eyes after getting home from late night play practices, studying for tests into the wee hours after a grueling soccer practice, finishing assignments in the morning after late night hours at work, sometimes managing to stop texting long enough to take the occasional quiz or perform the occasional lab experiment.

And now - be warned - I am finished with the platitudes. From here on out, I offer you no compliments whatsoever.

Because those of you sitting on the folding chairs before me

have

accomplished

nothing.

You are somewhere around eighteen years old, and you have earned a high school diploma that will be awarded to you in a few minutes, and yet if your life were to end right now, we would be able to write nothing more on your tombstone than Here lies a young man who had potential to do great things.

You are at this point still an unformed blob of what you might some day become.

Until you actually become that something - or allow yourself to stay a blob of driftless, formless nothing - you are made fully and entirely of raw potential, one of the most useless and prevalent substances in the world.

In a few minutes, when you are asked to shift your tassels from left to right, you will be readying yourself to take your next step toward choosing whether to develop your potential or to remain a formless blog. For many of you, that next step will be to head to a university to continue your schooling, continuing to shape yourself. For others, you are looking for just another year or two of schooling to ready yourself for the job force. Others of you are going directly into the work force, ready to shape yourself in the crucible of 'real life'.

No matter where your steps from Princeton lead you, I challenge you to do more than survive, do more than earn enough money to support yourself, do more than remain that shapeless blob, cycling between days at work and evening in front of the television.

I warn you that it is exceedingly easy to slip into such a routine, finding yourself living day by day, getting up, going to work, finishing the day, heading home to flop onto the couch before sliding into bed and beginning the entire routine again. I tell you this because I was there, teaching, heading home, teaching again. Were I to have disappeared right then, I my tombstone would certainly have read that I had that potential to do great things and instead I had only done some good things.

I had no plan, no goal, no thoughts that I needed to do more with myself than continue in that work-relax-sleep-work again cycle for another twenty five years sliding toward retirement before my career had even barely begun.

At the time, I had no idea that there was more to accomplish, that there was something missing from what would become my legacy. It was entirely by accident that I stumbled into a leadership position with Princeton's Pasta for Pennies campaign, something that I can safely say is my greatest accomplishment, the difference between me having potential and actually having an accomplishment worthy of carving upon my headstone.

My challenge to you is to find that accomplishment for yourself.

For some of you, that might mean actively searching out a cause, but for many of you, this will simply mean being open to the opportunities that come your way, as Pasta for Pennies did to me. If you aren't actively searching for your legacy, you will need to be open and willing to give of yourself, to throw yourself into charities and help out programs in need, and eventually to decide what your great accomplishment will be - setting up a recycling program at your university, tutoring children in need, raising the next generation to be good people, somehow making the world better for your presence.

We - your family; your neighbors; your teachers, counselors, principals; the Board of Education - have dedicated these past dozen years to readying each of you to step beyond Princeton. Now we need you to do the rest of the work and shape yourself the rest of the way.

We have handed you the potential, readied you to finish the job but you are the one who has to make sure that no one can ever carve on that you had nothing but that potential.

So go forth and realize your potential, graduates.

Thank you.

At least they got the color right

Into the Briny not so deep

Now that's a contest...chipping from the roof of a thirty-four floor building down to PetCo Park's outfield to a bullseye. If he hits to bullseye, PF Chang's gives everybody in the country free lettuce wraps and $2000 to Baird's chairty foundation ($1000 in the inner ring, $500 in the outer ring).

So go get yourself some lettuce wraps, folks.

Check out all the details - like you care, seriously free lettuce wraps - here.



Check it, folks, free lettuce wraps.


Did I mention the free lettuce wraps?

Happy Anniversary

Today the oldest high school radio station in the world turns 60.

Major congrats to WNAS which came on air May 28, 1949 broadcasting that year's New Albany High School graduation.

Congrats to the home of the Bulldogs and where I first found a voice on the radio dial.

Feel free to listen in via their streaming feed today.

Heading south by southwest?

I'm trying to convince The Girl that we need to fly down to Austin for Austin City Limits music festival.

Three days off, flights to and fro, $85 per day per person for tickets, but look at the lineup we'd get to enjoy.

So, should I take the three days and rock out?

'Cause Lakes Asked

You better donate, man...

The semi-annual plea

Her feet are a mess, a true wreck.

She can't walk barefoot around the house because of the plantar fascitis, and after every run she has to roll her feet back and forth across frozen water bottles to help decrease the swelling.

But she's running another marathon, folks.

And she's doing it for charity.

In September, The Girl will set off on Wright-Patterson Air Force base for the US Air Force Marathon and a 26.2 mile saunter through what looks the be some of the least thrilling marathon terrain around - including 3/4 of a mile on one of their runways.

Looks like I won't be driving around to see her at a half dozen locations on this course like I did when she ran The Pig a few years back.

She has asked that I make the offer to you folks to make a donation to her fund raising efforts via her online fundraising page - though I do warn you that if you click over there, you'll actually get to know her as something other than The Girl.

Of course, her name has been mentioned once or twice (my mistakes) on this blog and there was that one time I posted a bunch of pictures of her.

She's none the wiser, though, eh?

Oh, and if you want to make her a pledge, her personal best time for a full marathon is 5:04. Anybody wanna offer up some money if she breaks the 5:00 barrier?

Oh, and just so you know that we're doing our part in the fundraising, we spent Saturday night at Taste of Cincinnati selling Barefoot Wine for five and a half hours, earning about $300 between simply hourly wages and tips at the booth. Weirdly, I managed to see one current student, one former student (with family), two coworkers, and two identical twins of coworkers - neither of whom I knew had identical twins. And The Girl is crafty - she's just my type - and sewing headbands and keychains to sell. Plus there are the pleas being sent via snail mail (which some of you will probably be getting, too).

Consider yourself warned, folks.

Though you could head that off by making the donation in advance.

Thanks, Chris...thanks, Jeremy

PaperMag asked a number of advertising folks to put forth an image with the goal of rebranding America, in the spirit - apparently - of the glory that America is about to become under the leadership of our Great Obama. (In all cynicism, I am thrilled with most of the decisions of our current Commander in Chief though I recognize that he's got a whole lot of work left to do.)

Some of the images are stunning. Others seem to have missed the point and just played nasty.

My four favorites...

LOLing all the way to the poorhouse

Neatorama's mystery sale has come through in delivering me some serious funny in the form of The Laugh-out-loud Cats Sell Out, a collection of modern day hobo comics from Adam Koford.

I recommend reading back through all of his archives as they're routinely hilarious.

Check out his tribute to Paul Newman on the date of the passing of the Blue-eyed Man...

Clearing the bilges

From the bowels of stumbleupon, neatorama, yesbutnobutyes, and probably a few other blogs that I check with regularity:

• The 10 most disturbing books of all time - none of which I've read, two of which I've seen movies based upon
• 10 incredible recordings - for some reason, I find the number stations particularly creepy
• Bar bets - I remember Harry Anderson doing the "drink under a hat" one on Cheers at some point. Loved the scene.
• 25 logos with hidden messages - The toblerone and amazon logos stunned me. From the very cool GraphicDesignBlog.
• Wolfgang's Vault - free to download concert recordings
• 8tracks - another site that I might be trying to replace muxtape
• Animation for "Creep" - nice animation to go with the song "Creep"
• 95 old school video games you can play on the web - I really hate my laptop's mousepad sometimes.
• 20 best bad movies of the past 20 years - I can safely say I only saw two of these in the theater and have only seen four of them overall.
• "The Mysterious Stranger" by Twain - I need to read some version of this, maybe from his new collection.
• How to be an evil overlord - 100 things to make sure you do as an evil overlord.
• Periodic Table of Typefaces - This crap has got to stop. The periodic table is awesome, and every lame attempt to rip it off cheapens that.
• Propaganda video gallery - Nice videos from days gone by.
• Rainbow cupcakes - outstandingly pretty and tasty food

Pants

There comes a time in the school year - and the specific time depends on the weather - when I have one simple thought when I leave the building each day:

I'm in pants, and I'm not happy.

I'm in no way suggesting that I wanna walk around pantless, but from about early May until sometime around September, I'm kinda grouchy every time I have to wear anything longer than shorts.

That time has been here for about two weeks now.

Just so you know.

Down the hole, me droogs

White Rabbit - "Percussion Gun" with Letterman

I know absolutely nothing about this group other than what Letterman says in the intro, but I gotta get this song if not the whole album.

Thanks to Each Note Secure for the hit and the free download of the album track.

Too much, the mega bus

$1 to Chicago.

No driving, no stress, no worries.

$1 each way from Cincinnati to Chicago.

Leave the driving to them.

If you're thinking about a trip around the Midwest, then I'm gonna suggest checking out MegaBus's website because there simply isn't a cheaper way to get around. Plus there's the whole benefit of sharing the ride to drop your environmental footprint in the process.

My only concern is the presence of some bad reviews on some of the sites that I found online. I do appreciate this review, however:

You will find a wide variety of reviews on here because Megabus is indeed an unabashedly mediocre service. The buses tend to be craptastic and one certainly must NOT depend on any sort of timely or friendly service.

The point is: you get what you pay for.

The reason I'm giving Megabus a full Three Stars is, for all of its drawbacks, the damned thing is simple and CHEAP!

To assist those who may be new to this, allow me to offer...

~~Chuck's Top Five Things to Know When Considering Megabus~~

1. Book Early, Book Online
One of the recent reviews on here mentions how Megabus is actually comparable in price to Greyhound. This should not be the case.

Once again, the point is that this is a very inexpensive service. The earlier you book, the less expensive the tickets are. Literally. Book as far in advance as you can and you can even score a $1 rate!

**Special Note**
You can ONLY book reservations online and in advance so don't even think about trying to show up and pay a bus driver. It simply does not work that way.

2. Temper Your Expectations
Again, cheap rate = crappy service. If this isn't cool with you, don't use it. Come in with this in mind and you'll be fine.

3. Be Informed
One of the ways that Megabus keeps its rates down is by picking up and dropping off near (but not at) many major transportation centers. This makes for very odd and nontraditional connection points (which are nearly always poorly marked with ambiguous signage - if any).

Be certain you check your reservation on the Megabus website as close to your trip as possible because sometimes these pickup and drop off points change and that's the only way you'll know!

4. Put Away Your Watch
It's cheap for a reason. Expect pickups as early as 30 minutes before scheduled and -- more likely -- up to 2 hours late.

5. Do NOT Forget The Paperwork!
Perhaps most important of all: don't ever, evereverEVER roll up into the Megabus driver's grill without 'cho papers, yo. In all seriousness. Don't even try it!

Think of it this way: it's a reservation service (albeit an extremely low-end one). Since tickets are purchased online, the printed receipt displaying your long, complicated reservation code is the ONLY indication the driver has that you're seat claim is legit.

Keep these tips in mind and you'll not only be fine, but you might even enjoy yourself! ....ya cheapskate!

And this picture kind of makes me wonder...

ChemGuy on 'roids

(I apologize in advance for the rambling manner in which this is written. I certainly didn't outline my thoughts and arguments in advance, and I am - yet again - publishing a first draft.)

Professional sports are entertainment.

That's it, that's all.

Yes, most people play amateur sports for the fun, for the love of the game. Yes, a lot of people play pick-up basketball to stay fit.

But on the professional, major league level, the game isn't a game at all. It's a business in which adult men are doing what they can to entertain their fans.

And to that end, I'm not sure I care at all whether those men take performance enhancing drugs (PED).

I watch the games because I enjoy them. I follow the stats and standings because I enjoy doing that. I play fantasy baseball because I enjoy keeping in some contact with friends and enjoy trying to beat them in just about any competition that I can find.

And, I just can't come up with any way that my knowledge that players are taking steroids or human growth hormone affects any of that. I still get to see players accomplishing athletic feats that I couldn't possibly manage myself. I still get to see dramatic contests between opposing teams .

In fact, I probably get to spend more time watching many of the "cheating" players because many of these performance enhancing drugs allow them to spend more time on the field than on the disabled list.

In the past few years, we've seen a number of players admit to using or get caught using or be strongly assumed to be using PEDs - Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmiro, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Manny Ramirez, Ken Caminiti, Roger Clemons, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, and numerous others. Baseball writers have debated whether these transgressions - proven, assumed, self-admitted - should bar a player from the Hall of Fame, whether certain statistical accomplishments (Clemons's and Bonds's most vociferously), and how baseball should move forward from this point - to punish players retroactively, to ban players for life, to promise amnesty.

And I find myself not caring one little bit about any of the issues.

Baseball's games have shifted in style as the eras come and go - favoring pitchers for a few years until the mound gets flattened, favoring hitters as pitchers are unofficially banned from throwing inside, favoring speedsters as astroturf came into vogue, then to bashers with good batting eyes as Beane-ball overtook the running game. And I enjoy every style.

No matter what comes and goes, what styles is played, what drugs are taken behind the scenes and in the clubhouses, I continue to enjoy following baseball and attending baseball games.

The games are played by men who are competitive to a fault, and that's what makes the games so entertaining to watch. These are men who are willing to take anything and try anything to gain a little advantage over each other, and I think I'm okay with that.

Episode 4: A New Hope

In the distance, a glimmer...

Clash of the true titans

I'm totally gonna see this...

A little Primer

I love the film Primer. It's an amazing, small, complex masterpiece, and one that reveals new layers every time I watch it.

And apparently you can check out the full film on Google video.

Today's time waster

Play a little time waster today, folks...fill a few minutes.

Thank heaven for stumbleupon...

One more fried thing

And while I'm talking about food, I desperately want these which I found while searching pete bakes! for the mock apple pie.

Heya, Crimson

My AP Chemistry class has now finished up their annual exam, and we're in the wrap-up portion of the year. I'm not pushing them too hard, but I'm still getting them to study chemistry. The way I do this is by allowing (requiring) them to perform a chemistry demo and explain the science behind it. The requirements are pretty simple:

• It has to use chemicals we have or can get easily and legally.
• It has to be safe.
• It has to be a demo that I didn't do for them.
• If has to be exocharmic.

They've tentatively chosen (final choices due tomorrow) some moderately interesting demos - some very fun, some I know well, some I don't, some not so thrilling.

I've got this one student - let's call her CrimsonMirage, for lack of a better moniker - who's all into baking, and I'm thinking she should do a demo that combines her two passions - baking and organic chemistry - and make a mock apple pie.

It's a simple enough procedure, largely consisting of making a sugar syrup with creme of tartar and lemon juice then boiling Ritz crackers in the syrup and putting them into a pie shell. Apparently the whole thing tastes convincingly of apple pie once baked.

Check out recipes...

• at Back of the Box
• at exploratorium
• at Flirty Apron Swap
• at the Orlando Sentinel
• at the American Chemical Society
• At ChemShorts
• at Slashfood
• at Never Slap the Gift Donkey
• at Pete Bakes!
• at Bearcastle
• at KraftFoods

I'm kinda drooling now, I'll admit it.

Another shot of random

From the continuing web series Bunny, today's entry references another favorite of mine...

A little hipster haiku

It's my secret shame—
My love for 70's disco?
Not so ironic...

I know Atari
She knows only Nintendo
Generation gap

O, you thrift store lads
I thrill at your skinny pants!
Artfully mussed hair

My fantasy bar:
The juke box is all B-sides
All emo, all night

Vinyl collection
Original plastic sleeves
Alphabetical

I only kissed you
Because I saw the playlists
On your damn iPod

McEnroe poser
Your terry-cloth wristbands are
Obviously new

Rock my Adidas
(Wes Anderson collection)
Never rock Fila

Thanks, Aunt Polly. But
Chili's gift certificates
Are no good to me

~From Hipster Haiku by Siobhan Adcock

It's pretty obvious that this is a Seussical production, eh?

For some reason, this movie rolls around in my brain from time to time.

I saw it last week at Kroger for $9.99. That's a little too high for something that could be awful but that I remember fondly from seeing one weekend when I was a kid.



















Admittedly, that last one isn't actually from The 5000 Fingers of Dr T, but it's still funny.

That's high praise

I would argue that American Idiot is the greatest album of the decade. I know that's an incredibly subjective statement as there are thousands of albums released every year and its flatly impossible for anyone to listen to all of them. I know I haven't listened to more than probably a hundred albums that have been released this decade, but I am so amazingly impressed with Idiot, that few - if any - bands have put out anything as tuneful, as successful, as ambitious as Idiot in this decade or ever.

So, when the first review I read for their follow up, 21st Century Breakdown states flatly that...

21st Century Breakdown is even better, so masterful and confident it makes Idiot seem like a warm-up.

I'm there and ready. iTunes is offering a full album plus four extra songs pre-order for $14.99, and I just officially bought my first fully-digital album. In another week, I'll download the full album.

Smile, you're on Candid Camera

I hate hidden camera shows.

I hate them from Candid Camera all the way down through every one of its stupid frickin' descendants like Punk'd and Howie Do It.

Hate them.

Wanna see

Connections in the blogosphere

It's interesting how many folks I know via PHS who blog with whatever level of frequency they happen to be managing. Some of these are blogs that I check in with regularly. Some are ones that I comment on. Some are ones that I follow via RSS. I can safely say that I know every one of these folks...

• The Ktulu - dispatches and occasional substantial writings from Lexington, KY
• Good to go - She's probably a good mother; she's just not a good advertisement for motherhood.
• Do your best and leave the rest - thoughts and meanderings from a former co-workers in the deepest southern state
• There is no one alive who is youer than you - the Belmont beat from a musical guy down in Music City
• I've got news for you - Eugene's rather sporadic meanderings and YouTube hits (love the Mos Def) from Athens
• Without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday - a hugely intermittent blog of a Cincinnati girl currently in Athens, as well
• Oceans of Noise - another Athens girl (apparently PHS produces a number of them) who's got a bit of a connection to our next blogger
• Meet New School - gamer, buff mack daddy, Notre Dame apologist and first Dayton blogger in my heart
• Katydid in the City - my windy city connection and former student with the best taste in music, movies, and pretty much everything
• If there's nothing there... - a blogger who, from time to time, struggles to find topics...I'm guessing it'll be easier when she's in the Big Apple
• You Know It. - gorgeous, gorgeous artwork
• Definitely Maybe - if You Know It. is the best artist, then Definitely Maybe is the best graphic designer
• You heard me... - the whitest funk Seoul brother around
• Everybody's changing - some creepy masked dude who's going to be joining a few other Vikings in Columbus next year
• The Delight of my Disorder - a two-post blog from an architect-to-be
• Wholesale Nothing - current PHS student...sometimes commenter here
• Without a Clue, and Proud of It - former PHS student, only person I know in Maine
• Quarter Note Life - okay, I'm stumped on who this is - any help out there, folks?

There's one other that I'm not going to point out at the author's request, but that author should know that I check that blog absolutely regularly. Holla, holla right at you and Athena.

The glories of River Falls

Dude, I miss the malls back home.

There were - still sort of are - two mirrored malls in the small town bordering The Hometown. They're major shopping complexes in the Kentuckiana area, drawing - I'm gonna make a quick estimate here - like a billion people every year to the mecca of commerce that is Eastern Boulevard.

I mean, they have Wikipedia pages, for heaven's sake.

(An aside: is it heaven's sake or heaven sakes or heaven's sakes, huh?)

I remember hitting River Falls on its opening weekend when I was a sophomore in high school.

I remember playing mini golf at the upstairs course for the first step in my bachelor party as planned by The Best Man.

I had my first two dates with The Girl there - Alice and L.A. Story - as well as one of our final dates when she cut me loose in college after seeing Jurassic Park. Still hate that film.

I remember stealing a a shopping cart on Fathers' Day eve from the Wal-Mart attached to River Falls.

I miss the aimless idling around the upstairs of River Falls, killing Friday and Saturday nights in small parts of our seemingly giant (probably eight or ten most weekends) group of friends.

Gamer, CoachSullivan, can I get a shout out for the demise of River Falls?

For when you need that late night taco taste

As I have mentioned before, I have a penchant for foods that some might consider less than good for me. Ice cream, donuts, and Doritos are like the Vince Vaughn friend who drags you out of your misery, takes you to a party, but ends up leaving you passed out in puddle of your own filth, regretting the fact that you ever opened the door to let him in.

That didn't stop me, however, from heading straight for the Late Night Taco Doritos when The Girl handed me free reign to choose the snack chip to accompany her night of burgers a little while ago. Oh, I was aware that these Doritos probably wouldn't be all that different from the hundred of other Doritos varieties. Let's be honest - every Dorito's flavor that I've ever had has fallen either into the cheese-salsa family or the ranch family. There aren't exactly a lot of Doritos food groups here in the US (unlike the Peking Duck or sausage flavors available in Germany). But I'm not looking for fabulous variety in my Doritos wanderings; I'm looking for a solid, slightly different offering within the same food family.

Unlike my last foray into food craptacularness, this one paid off in spades. The Late Night Taco Doritos are excellent with a nicely smoky, moderately hot flavor that is reminiscent of they're eponymous flavor. They would be easy to have devoured in a single sitting, but I did manage to milk them out for a week or so.

Next up, Last Call Jalapeno Popper Doritos this weekend.

Reviews...

• The Impulsive Buy
• Phood.com
• The Onion