My previous post was about the early pushing of bad Christmas/Winter music. A couple days ago I got in the car and found that XM's "40s on 4" had been replaced by "Holiday Traditions" until after Christmas. The 40s channel was not moved. This is irritating. This is the crap sort of thing that drove people AWAY from broadcast radio in the first place! And it's not as if there aren't other channels that could be used. It's after the baseball season, even I know that. And XM has a scad of baseball (MLB) channels that could have been used.

Right now I'm settling for the 50s channel and occasionally others, but I'm not bothering with 4 for a few weeks. Sure, if it had stayed 40s, I'd have expected some holiday music - but that's it, just some. They DID use dormant channels in previous years. Why did they decide to screw over to 40s this year? Is it that Sirius pulls that crap and this is merger fallout? Is it that this forces an audience for a moment, ala spammers? If I want that sort of abuse, I'll go to a damn mall.

Great going XM/Sirius, you make going to an mp3 player look all that much better: no subscription and no bogus channel-format change crap. Hey, I know it's now considered rather Old School, but I still have a tape deck and I'm not afraid to use it.

I hope XM manages to learn not to do that as they managed to learn a bit with the Radio Classics channel. For a few years they'd have a week (only a week!) of all Christmas themed radio shows. Until last year when they had a week with only some Christmas themed shows, and some regular shows - listeners had had enough.

Current Mood: pissed off

Some places are already playing Christmas music and nothing but Christmas music. This is rather early, I think, for that. The inclusion of the occasional winter tune might be acceptable, but full-on Christmas music shouldn't happen until after Thanksgiving if it happens at all. My problem with Christmas music isn't that I don't like it. It's not even necessarily the repetition, though by now there ought to be enough tunes that repeats shouldn't need to happen frequently, and that's counting by title rather than by performance. It's the poor quality of every b-list,c-list, d-list... z-list quasi-celebrity cover of tunes that have been better by better. While White Christmas might not require Bing Crosby and Here Comes Santa Claus might not require Gene Autry, they are destroyed by various wannabes and also-rans put their undesired mark on them. One thing I will agree with the bletcherous Beavis and Butthead on: "Micheal Bolton can make anything suck."

I know there are some radio stations with an all-Christmas format, but the places where one encounters this most are stores that have Muzak or such (no commercials save what the store adds) and those seem to be sanitized of the more interesting Christmas and Winter tunes, such as Christmas At Ground Zero.

Now I'm pondering the interesting not-so-standard Christmas and Winter tunes. I know of a few:

Christmas At Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic
Happy Hairy Hippie Santa Claus ("You bet your sweet bippy Santa Claus is a hippie...")
Rusty Chevrolet - Da Yoopers
My Car Won't Go - Da Yoopers
I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas - Yogi Yorgesson
A Christmas Carol - Tom Lehrer
I'm Spending Hanukkah In Santa Monica - Tom Lehrer

Any others that wouldn't be all that likely to played in a store, but might provide some welcome relief if they were?

Current Mood: curious

I went rummaging around the attic yesterday looking for something that as far as I can tell isn't up there. But I did find some other things, including the rabbit ears I was looking for a few months back, not that they'll do me any good anytime soon. I also found a couple old 'personal music players'. One was a cheapie GPX AM/FM radio and the other, to my surprise, was an honest to goodness Sony Walkman (WM-FX301 if model numbers have any meaning for you). It's no mp3 player, but it has AM/FM and the tape player is even auto-reverse. I had forgotten I had such a thing. I'm not even sure how I wound up with such a thing.

As if that wasn't enough, this has to have been sitting for oh, about 8 years I'd guess and the cells were still good. How did I manage to forget this, with a set of lithium cells in it yet? I don't know.

I used it last night while doing a few things about the house. The advantage is that I can listen and not disturb jmaynard. The AM band was full of noise, hardly a surprise in a house (or world) full of computers. FM didn't have as much noise, but aside from some of the programming on Public Radio, FM broadcast is pretty much junk. So I grabbed a tape. One that seems to have stuff on it from about 1984. I hadn't listened to it in some time.

One tune was Mark Russell singing about how "Fritz Can't Win Come Election Day" when it was plain a couple weeks before the election that Walter Mondale wouldn't get far. Another was Garrison Keillor going on about the loss, "We're Never Gonna Run For President Again." I suspect he'd be less than thrilled if Tim Pawlenty ran - and won. Another tune was about alternate energy and was clearly before the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hysteria as it belittled everything but coal - and fusion when it finally is made to work - and there was no concern at all about carbon dioxide. I'm tempted to copy down the lyrics of some of these to see what folks might have to say about them.

The Walkman seems big and clunky now, but it is mechanical and not all that much larger than the tape it plays. I'd still like to have a personal mp3 player, but I have something workable right now.

Current Mood: amused

I've heard Juke Box Saturday Night and I thought I had a copy someplace. To my astonishment I don't have it in mp3, and a while ago I encoded all my CDs. I just looked through the CDs and... none of them seem to have Juke Box Saturday Night.

I looked throught the cassette tapes. That tune seems to be missing. I though I'd heard it at home.. which means I heard it on CD (maybe from a library, maybe). Maybe from a tape. Maybe.. and it would be some time ago.. from an LP. I know I heard it recently though that was most likely on XM.

Still, it's very odd that tune seems not to be in my collection. Maybe I'm overlooking something. But I want to hear it now, dangit.

Why? I finally know a bit more about the first line, "Mopping up soda pop rickeys" as I happened across the definition/recipe for a rickey: a drink with the juice of a lime.

Current Mood: upleasantly surprised

Glenn Miller is still missing.

Current Mood: mischievous

Every once in a while I hear the tune It's One Or The Other and each time I seem to get tripped up by one line or verse. The actual line is, "If it's not Sis... it's your brother." What happens I hear the first part as, "If it's it not cis-..." and mentally complete it with, "..it's trans-."

Current Mood: nerdy

Via hakeber:

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

I got "R" so:

1. Rum and Coca Cola - Andrews Sisters
2. Radioland - Kraftwerk (Radioactivity)
3. Rocketing Each Other's Hinterland by The Capitol Steps (Danny's First Noel, 1989)
4. Rabid Child - They Might Be Giants (They Might Be Giants)
5. Run Runaway - Slade

And I didn't even go out of my way to make a somewhat eclectic list.

From a comment on a post (not mine) on novelty tunes:

Recently heard someone from Fermilab sing this:

“Do your particles lose their flavor in the chamber overnight?"
"Do they enter with a left hand spin and exit with a right?"

Current Mood: amused

While wandering around the web and various journals, I happened across a post about the term toxin which lead to a filk-ish result. And as regards the last paragraph, yes I have thought about how silly that opening line is.

Current Mood: amused

ladyniniane will appreciate this:

Once upon a time I worked at a post office, nights. This is when trucks come in, mail gets unloaded, sorted, loaded, and the trucks leave. Naturally there is a lot of activity when the morning is one of a delivery day, Monday through Saturday, as local mail is processed outbound and inbound and then thing are made ready for the local area. But Sunday mornings tend to be slow. Fewer trucks in, fewer going out, no local delivery except for express.

I liked working on the loading dock, despite the lack of air conditioning. It had a few advantages. One was that a supervisor that even USPS wasn't stupid enough to reward with a day shift tended not to go out on the dock very much. Another was that when you unloaded a truck, or loaded a truck, you had an end that could be seen getting closer and there was some feeling of accomplishment when that bit was done. Things changed, even if only a little bit. Working on a sorting belt inside there was no end other than the clock. Things seemed to stay the same.

So Sunday mornings I'd often be on the dock without anyone else around but the (acting) dock supervisor. Sundays had a minimal crew and regular supervisors were normally not around, having the day (or night) off. There was almost always a radio playing, which helped some. Since the thing was also a tape player I asked if I could bring in a tape, since I was about the only one around anyway. This was quickly agreed to and I made up a tape.

I included some Animaniacs tunes, some Big Band Swing, and some Classical. When I brought the tape in, the (acting) dock supervisor asked what was on it and I told him. The Animaniacs and Swing didn't get much reaction but when I said "Classical" I got the reaction, "Awww, not classical!" and I quickly explained I did not mean opera. That helped a bit, but he was still leery.

As the night went on the tape played through. One truck driver commented, when the Big Band stuff was playing, "It's about time you got some good music around here." And later the classical stuff started. And the dock supervisor looked at me, "Hey, that's cartoon music!" It was both. If I recall right, he caught on sometime while Rossini was playing.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Variety Speak - Animaniacs

Via hakeber.

If you've heard the tune, you know it wouldn't take too much to illustrate it. Now someone has and the result is on youtube: Interstate 80 Iowa.

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jmaynard and I had reason to go to Mankato for a few things today, and I now have a 128 MB USB flash drive (the PNY Attache from Best Buy). That along with the gadget I picked up last night makes up my auto mp3 player. Earlier in the day we got mp3 encoding working on belgian so I can encode to the format the thing can play. The gadget even plays some mp3 files that seem to give xmms (version 1.2.7 so it's not the latest and greatest) some trouble.

After loading the flash drive with mp3 files, I had to test it. First in the office to be sure it would play a troublesome file, then in the car to be sure it worked for what I really wanted. Two issues came up, both of which are treatable. It seems there's enough hash in the air even in little Fairmont that every FM channel from 87.7 to 88.9 MHz has enough noise to make things sound scratchy. Fortunately the Corolla's broadcast receiver antenna is mounted on the A-pillar where the driver can reach out and adjust it. I had it fully retracted and things sounded clean. Or at least they did most files. That's the other issue. The mp3 player seems to clip a bit on a few files I'd made with Audacity and had adjust the levels to *just* not clip, or so it had seemed. Evidently that's a bit more than the player-transmitter combination can take. The files made from CD all sounded fine.

I like this thing. I could use a few more flash drives, but that's not a big deal. I have until a bit before RCFM for that. On that trip (16 hours one way if I were nutty enough to do it in one shot), I'd like to have a few hours worth of music, spread across a few flash drives.

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Moonlight Cocktail - Glenn Miller

Last year I mentioned what my ideal (automotive) digital music player would be like. My ideal still seems not to exist. However, considering the price of the item I picked up tonight I'm willing to compromise a bit. I now have an automotive mp3 player - or at least most of one. I still need to get a USB memory stick or four.

Tonight jmaynard and I went looking for a few items at Wal-mart and I noticed this gadget which sells for about $30. It doesn't need batteries since it plugs into the car power (cigarette lighter) socket. It transmits on the low end of the FM band, on one of seven easily selectable frequencies. It will transmit audio from a cable so I could use a CD player or such if I desired. But the neat part is that it plays mp3s from a USB memory stick. I can put whatever mp3s I want on a memory stick with whatever operating system I prefer. Jay and I tried this tonight in the office and he used Mac OS X to put a few tunes on a memory stick of his and they all played fine.

This gadget isn't perfect. Even with only playing mp3 files (we tried an ogg file which it merrily ignored, as we had expected) it has a couple limitations. It doesn't remember its own transmitting frequency through a power cycle, nor does it resume playing at the same point it stopped if power is removed. Combine that with not having any navigation beyond [Previous file] [Play/Pause] and [Next file] and it means that a big USB memory isn't really a good idea. Who wants to tap the forward button through a few hours of music? Instead, a few smaller USB sticks would be better. With a play rate of roughly one minute per megabyte a 128 MB stick would be around two hours of play - which is about the longest I am now willing to drive without stopping for water or just to move around a bit. So a few 128 MB sticks (which sell for about $15 each now) seem to be ideal for this. The order of play is very simple: the first file put on the USB stick is the first file played and so on, so put things on it in the order desired.

The limitations aren't too big of a deal. It allows me to play mp3s in the car without any real installation issues. It allows me to use my preferred operating system - or any machine with a USB port. I can change media as I see fit. If I wanted to, I could get a 512 MB stick and use this in the house with a 12 volt power supply and have about eight hours of music. Or I could use the cable and play from the computer and use a good set of stereo speakers.

Current Mood: cheerful

Snippet of actual lyrics:

When Katharine Hepburn speaks her part,
And gives out high dramatic art,

The lyrics are sung just fast enough that words can seem to run together. But I just can't picture Hepburn giving out "hydramatic art."

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Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Popcorn Sack - Spike Jones and His City Slickers

Now, for an entry on music, since I was simply asked (on IRC) rather than given a "you gotta." But I've already made such an entry. It's this one.

Current Mood: calm

Slashdot has had a couple recent articles about digital music/media players. There's quite a selection, however none manage to have the set features I'd like all in the same package. Somehow they all seem to manage to miss one thing - and I don't think I'm asking for that much when everything I do desire is in multiple players, just never all in the same player.

• I desire a digital music player that plays .ogg as well as .mp3 files. If it can also play other formats, that's a bonus. If not, it's not a deal-breaker.



• I desire a digital music player that does not demand I use Windows™ to use it or set it up.



• I desire a digital music player that has its own FM transmitter since I'd be using it in the car and don't care to mess with annoying tape adapters or fiddle with the wiring. And while an FM transmission might not be ideal for fidelity, remember this would be in a car where there's wind, road, and engine noise. Any loss of fidelity from FM wouldn't be noticed.

I don't need an FM receiver. I don't need a huge amount of space on the thing - four hours of music capacity would suffice, eight would be nice. More than twelve is almost certainly overkill. I certainly don't need it gold plated. I don't need a fancy display - I merely need to know that's on or off and if its transmitting, on what frequency. I don't need to record voice or radio. I don't even need much in the way to choose what it plays, really. It'd be nice, but while driving? Three main controls are all I really ask: ON/OFF, PREVIOUS and NEXT. Anything else is bonus.

It's easy to find stuff with many of the things I don't really care that much about. Nothing wrong with that, I could always choose simply not to use the "extras" or might eventually find them useful. But for now, I have yet to find anything with the three things I desire all in the same package.

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Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: Orange Barrels - Bob and Tom

I'm pondering starting a musical group. The gimmick would be the intentional drifting into dissonance during a performance. I have the ideal name for it, too: Opporknockity. After all, "Opporknockity tunes but once."

Whoops, there already is a group calling themselves Opporknockity. Well, so much for that idea. (And Min-"Tune it or die!"-strosity heaves a collective sigh of relief...)

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Current Mood: devious

I had seen and heard clips from time to time that had, as I remembered it, a musical number that included the bit of lyrics, "..in glorious Technicolor and stereophonic sound.."

I'd been wondering what that was from for some time. I had looked and used Google a few times. Tonight I finally managed to be persistent enough to get the right search keywords. I mis-remembered the lyrics. The line really goes, "...glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sound." It's a line from "Stereophonic Sound" by Cole Porter and the tune was in the 1957 Fred Astaire film Silk Stockings.

Once I knew that, I could look around a bit more. That didn't turn up the rest of the lyrics (I think I need to get a DVD or a sound track CD) but it did reveal this piece of information, which amuses me: 'Stereophonic Sound' from Silk Stockings, 1955. Although originally produced on the stage, where such things did not count, the film version was in glorious Metrocolor, breathtaking Panavision and Perspecta sound.

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Current Mood: chipper

I stayed up way too late last night, making sure the VCRs taped the Jimmy Kimmel show. $!#% ballgame throwing the schedule off. I got the show taped, though I likely clipped a bit of the intro on both tapes. $!#% ballgame throwing the schedule off.

The result is that I'm tired today. Tired enough to resort to drinking a can of Mountain Dew for the caffeine. Now I'm sort of awake. I'm still tired, but the nerves seem to be firing a bit more, if that makes any sense. It's interesting to watch myself appear to be awake but still not feeling like I'm really awake. The last time I really noticed this was in college after pulling a rare all-nighter and using way too much caffeine. I felt caffeine's other, non-stimulant, effects for a few days after that. I hope that doesn't happen this time - those effects are rather annoying. So no more caffeine for me today. Maybe I should have had something other than a Mountain Dew.

( Music abuse )

I think I'll take a nap after supper tonight.

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Current Mood: not really awake
Current Music: "Mother's Little Helper" - internal twisted versions

One of the items in yesterday's mail was Minstrosity's latest CD with the above title. Just looking at the cover and credits is amusing. I'll just say that the list of instruments played by wendyzski is certainly complete.

Oh, the recordings on the CD are worth the price, too.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: The Ballad of Tommy Gibb - Minstrosity