It's the Little Things That Matter...

...like being able to send the tweet you just wrote. It would be easy if the button were...accessible.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v21qlAfAiIo&]

Brilliant Google, just brilliant.

You can have your very own one of these for like $400. Well worth every penny, I say.

-B

Matisyahu and PS22

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maVIZ30GPGU&] just a few comments though:

Is it just me or is the reggae sense kind of lost in this performance even more than it already is in the song to begin with?

The words(because of the difficulty of melody and rhythm) are lost in a mush.

Matisyahu is a sick beatboxer.

What is going through the girl's head who is singing the solo? She is singing the song WITH THE ARTIST.

Where is Akon?

Ha.  Great work boys and girls.

-B

Come In Pluto

In 2006, not long after the IAU took away Pluto from our planetary system, Jordan Stout, Andrew Norton, and myself wrote a song. A cry to Pluto if you will.

Andrew wrote the poetry, I saw it on the Facebook group and wrote this plea. We went on to write an entire album. Perhaps we will sell them on iTunes someday.

Lyrics will be below the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgMl9nGIWKc]

To you it may not seem that bad

But a life without Pluto is very sad

What did he ever do that was so wrong?

That is why I will forever sing my song...

 

Come in Pluto, can you hear my cry?

I'll fight for you until the day I die

And, come in Pluto no we won't let go

A dwarf planet it still a planet, no?

 

So don't just sit back while this goes on

Stand up and be part of the revolution

Bring pluto back to where he belongs

Together we can right this terrible wrong.

 

Come in Pluto, can you hear my cry?

I'll fight for you until the day I die

And, come in Pluto no we won't let go

A dwarf planet it still a planet, no?

A dwarf planet is still a planet, yes.

-B

Tyler Clementi

Ellen talks about it here. For a little more coverage, see below: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l82g-FaKRv4&]

I only have a few statements to make:

I don't see this as teen bullying. Bullying seems like something that can be overcome. This is evil. Pure evil. [There is only one being that can overcome evil]

The students who did this deserve whatever our justice system can give them. I hope that this dramatically changes the course of their lives.

With the age of the Internet and media that can be recorded, produced, distributed, and streamed from a dorm room, society has got to do a better job of making better decisions. Stupid jokes are no longer theoretical jokes, they are reality and can get out of hand ten times faster than we thought possible before.

How does a campus react to something like this? Keep Rutgers in your prayers. And every other high school or College that has dealt and will deal with this type of situation. In a time when it is still not "acceptable" to be gay, every institution across America has someone somewhere who is watching this story thinking...that could have been me that was outed.

Is anyone else tired of living in a society where this happens?

-B

iPad Competition

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaez_4m9mQ&hd=1] Looks pretty good to me.  7 inches.  Pairs with 3G on a blackberry.  Says that the web browsing is "uncompromised".  It's based on webkit (an Apple project) so we shall see.  Ever since the iPhone, Blackberry has been behind in web browsing.  We don't know prices yet but for blackberry lovers, this could be a cool device.  It would interesting to give it a try.  The Galaxy Tab (an Android creation by Samsung) looks to give the iPad a run for its money too, but the pricing (as rumored so far) looks like it may hurt sales.

Any thoughts?

-B

September 16th, Customer Service, NC State, and False Advertising.

I know, I know, it's after midnight. It's not September 16th anywmore.  But, this was going to happen either way. If you don't like the Apple stuff, keep reading.  This post isn't about Apple. I don't usually like to post about my day either, but this is simply necessary.  You get a tootsie roll pop if you make it all the way to the end.  Think of it as a narrative, you'll enjoy it more.

On September 16th, 1985 Steve Jobs was forced out of his leadership role at Apple Computer Inc.

On September 16th, 1997 Steve Jobs came back to Apple Computer Inc.

He was there for seven years, gone for 12, back for 13. Wired has a good article on it here.

Everyone knows I love Apple.  But here is why I love Apple: they care about user experience.  They have a great place to get your computer fixed.  Their customer support is outstanding and always getting better. Play with their devices, you'll know that they care about user experience. I have come to not be able tolerate paying for something and not getting the experience that was designed. Read on.

Let me tell you about MY September 16th.  The day began. My new hard drive for my laptop came in the mail yesterday.  I copied everything over and put it in the machine this morning.  I didn't lose any screws (there were 27 minuscule ones), and the machine booted up (faster than before I might add) after everything went back together.  Huge success.  It really feel almost like a new machine.  I finalized my installation of the beta version of iOS 4.2 on my iPad.  It's awesome.

Today started out well.

I had one class, it went great and then I came home to read some before heading the NC State vs. Cincinnati game here in Raleigh.

Here is how that process works: If you want a parking pass (the stadium is off campus) you have to stand in line at a certain time during the week to get one.  They are free, but not unlimited by any means.  Allie stood in line for about a half an hour for ours.  We had some friends going with us, so they rode in my car.

Now, these parking passes. They're made of cheaper paper type cardboard material.  Not quite as study as card stock...but almost.  They hang from your mirror (or at least they say that you should hang them).  At the bottom of the pass is a perforated section with a coupon for $10 off of Jiffy Lube.

We had done this before. Last game, we tore off the jiffy lube coupon and they directed us into the parking lot.  Traffic sucked but it was no big deal.  To add, last game we were in line and I saw the guy taking the passes, ripping off the coupons, pocketing them, and then sending the people on their way. Not to be outsmarted, this week I tore off my coupon just like I had before.

So we got to the lot.

And I held up the pass.

And the man asked if we had been in yet, I told him no.  He asked where the coupon was.  I showed it to him.  He told me that THEY have to rip it off. I told him that he could have it. He said I'd need to turn around and leave.  I asked him why. He said that they have a policy that they have to rip it off.

Then he said "TURN HIM AROUND!"

I pulled up a little bit to see if I could talk to the other guy about this ridiculousness.

He yelled again, "TURN HIM AROUND!!!!" **I thought we usually referred to inanimate objects as females**

I asked where I was supposed to park.

He shrugged and said, "You need to leave now"

**Let me pause and say that I was trying to hold my temper. I can't stand disrespect. He was beyond rude in his dealing with the situation.**

The parking pass did not say anything ANYWHERE about not ripping off the coupon.  I mean, it's a coupon.  Why wouldn't you rip it off?

I stopped the car, almost got out and pointed out once more that he could have the coupon and that it shouldn't matter.  The fact that I had the coupon meant that I hadn't been there yet.

He told me to leave again.

I complied. But no one in the car was happy.

I went back to try to find parking on the street somewhere.  A long way away, we found half a spot and squeezed the Jeep in. Throughout this endeavor, my loving wife was calling the number on the parking pass which was labeled "Parking Problems? Call 919-***-****"  She yelled pretty extensively.  Evidently they only deal with towing, not parking problems.  Cool.  Hence, false advertising.

As we were walking toward the stadium, I stopped to ask one of the other attendants if they had a manager or boss.  One of the guys laughed and told me they did. I asked if I could speak to them and explained the situation and the frustration. He agreed, if that's going to be a policy, it should explicitly say somewhere that the coupon cannot be torn off.  (It's worth noting that later we found out that they had been returning the coupons to the pass holders.  So....the guy turned us away even though we had a pass because we...ripped it and he didn't get to?) I asked him if he would say something to leadership because the rule is dumb and needs to be explained if its going to be enforced.  We thanked him and walked on. Success.

Followed by failure.  Of course this put us in the stadium after kick off.  this was especially true for me.  I forgot my ticket in the car throughout this entire fiasco.  Allie's had already been scanned, so she went in, got her hand stamped for North End Zone student section (they told her that I could get a North End stamp when I got back).  I walked the 25 minutes back to the car, got my ticket, and walked the 25 minutes back. I got into the stadium, went to get stamped, and...South End Zone.  When we asked why, we got a "sorry, you're out of luck answer, you two will have to sit at different ends."  Real cool.  My ticket was $25 and it was getting to be well worth it.

Experience, experience. In case you were wondering, NC State Football has no customer service line.  No complaints process.  No way to prove that their policies are silly or don't work.  No compassion for any situation from those working.

I blame it all on the guy who wanted desperately to get my coupon for Jiffy Lube.

We ended up walking around the stadium until the guy patrolling the section our friends were in left.  We went up and watched the second half with them.

It was a good game.  But not a good experience.

I hope someone involved with this endeavor reads this. It's hard to please everyone at a situation as big as a college football game broadcast on ESPN. But, generally, GOOD policies and genuine servants who just wish to accomplish their job without pissing anyone off help with this project.

I've done a little customer service as an RA and in my role as a Support Member at Warren Willis camp. It's hard work dealing with people who are on edge. I get that.

But I also believe in pleasing the customer. Because if you please them, they're happy, they'll come back, and your business will succeed.

College football will always be successful. So customer service is obviously not a priority. Obviously.

If you ever work in customer service, try to do better than this guy.  I hate, no, "strongly dislike" him.

He's probably good to go with oil changes for the foreseeable future though.

September 16th, 1985 sucked for Steve Jobs.

September 16th, 2010 ended up sucking for me too.

-B

The Unfortunate Situation That Is Taylor Swift's Singing

Look, I didn't watch the VMA's last night. I was too busy doing school work.  In fact, I forgot all about it.

I happened to get tipped off by Twitter that Kanye was ending the show.  I figured that because of last year, this might be interesting.

It was terrible.  Kanye didn't apologize, he "toasted" his poor judgement in a way of saying, "Everyone is like this a bit..."

Whatever.

But, I went back this morning to find Taylor Swift's performance.  You can watch it below.  Hurry up before Viacom pulls it down. You may have to click through as YouTube has tried to disable the embedding of it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU04bgrL1_E&hd=1]

Everyone commented just like they do every time she sings live. She's just not a good singer.

There are a few things that play here.

Anyone who has either sung (live) into a microphone that is recorded and listened back later knows that there is no way to make the sound sound like it did live.  For those of you willing to argue about live concerts recorded professionally, YES, they sound good.  But they don't sound exactly like they did live.  They're close...but no quite there.

If you've ever watched a live concert on television, you know this to be the case too.  Every singer sounds a little off. A little out of tune, a little under supported.

Taylor is certainly not an exception to this.

She's young. She's 20.

She sings on tour quite a bit. (This is rough on your voice)

She's mainly a songwriter.

The instruments and sound in the room are loud.

She has in ear monitors that essentially plug her ears and feed her what she needs.

And here's my theory: She's awkward.

Watch her on stage.  She's very pretty, but she's a tall lanky girl, who just seems out of place at times on stage. Many of us who primarily play an instrument and sing often feel that way when we are without an instrument and just a microphone.

Something about all this tells me that she may be personally aware of this. And...because of this, she is less confident.  In watching the clip several times back, I seem to think that this affects the way she sings. Without this confidence, she doesn't have the breath support  to back up some of the phrases she writes.

Nor the range.

Moving along with that theory, she doesn't have the control that many other singers her age have. Listen to Hayley Williams. She gets that control through confidence and breath support control.

I commented on Facebook earlier today that she ought to sing with some sort of pitch correction. After all, you'd be hard pressed to find a pop artist these days that doesn't sing with some effects and pitch control. It's simply a necessity in those situations. Sometimes in live tv performances, those effects are fed to the TV.  Sometimes they're not. I guarantee that you know which ones are which.

The underlying reason that Taylor's performances are not bearable is because the entire song is sung under pitch. Even someone who might be considered "tone deaf" knows when they hear bad singing.

Which leads to my last conclusion, she just doesn't have a very good ear. My guess is that the record company (rightly) picked her up because she was a phenomenal country/pop song writer and she was sellable.  Nothing better than a young, pretty, blonde girl who writes songs (and catchy ones at that) about all the guys that screwed with her. Don't cross Taylor or she'll write a song about you. However, she's not a singer. She's not terrible...we've all heard much worse...but she's not great. Unfortunately for her, that's a large part of being an artist. Musical artists get called on to sing at events live. So you have to be good. People have to enjoy listening to you sing. We just don't with her.

Taylor is great.  She's a better song writer than I'll ever be.

She's got a great heart, as evidenced by the song that she wrote for Kanye and about the experience.

She's got a great story and has only more to look forward to.

She has kept to being a good girl, in a world full of young stars who aren't.

But she can't sing.

She doesn't have the breath support.  She doesn't have the confidence. She doesn't have the ear.  She doesn't have the control.

These are all things that singers consider good and desirable qualities.

Most listeners desire for the artist to posses them as well.

Here's to hoping it gets better.

-B

UPDATE: You can also find the performance here

Lyrics to the song are below:

I guess you really did it this time Left yourself in your warpath Lost your balance on a tightrope Lost your mind tryin’ to get it back

Wasn’t it easier in your lunchbox days? Always a bigger bed to crawl into Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything? And everybody believed in you?

It’s all right, just wait and see Your string of lights is still bright to me Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been You’re still an innocent You’re still an innocent

There’s some things you can’t speak of But tonight you’ll live it all again You wouldn’t be shattered on the floor now If only you would sing what you know now then

Wasn’t it easier in your firefly-catchin’ days? And everything out of reach, someone bigger brought down to you Wasn’t it beautiful runnin’ wild ’til you fell asleep? Before the monsters caught up to you?

It’s all right, just wait and see Your string of lights is still bright to me Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been You’re still an innocent

It’s okay, life is a tough crowd 32, and still growin’ up now Who you are is not what you did You’re still an innocent

Time turns flames to embers You’ll have new Septembers Every one of us has messed up too

Lives change like the weather I hope you remember Today is never to late to Be brand new

It’s all right, just wait and see Your string of lights are still bright to me Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been You’re still an innocent

It’s okay, life is a tough crowd 32, and still growin’ up now Who you are is not what you did You’re still an innocent

PS22 Chorus

One day in Chorale at Florida Southern, a new tenor sat next to me.  His name was Andrew Canlon. Some of you FSCites may have heard him play at Beyond and may have seen "O'Canlon"(his band) play before.

He was good.

Turned out, his old music teacher was a chorus teacher at PS22 in New York City.

Inner city education has always been of interest to me. Probably has something to do with the emotion of fighting the bad parts of our culture.

Coincidently, I had been watching videos of PS22 on YouTube. They've been featured on NiteLine, Oprah, Good Morning America, not to mention that Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Tori Amos, and Ashton Kutcher have been huge supporters.

They've done some cool 9/11 stuff as well.

You can see them rehearsing his song "Valor" with an intro from the teacher:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KHdEYgq7Tg]

Though many musicians and music teachers fight against using pop culture and musical influences to teach youth, I've always viewed it as an effective means of producing a good product. Plus it pays homage to what is happening in our world.

It is rare that you see kids this young singing such music with such passion. Forget the technicalities of musicianship for now, this is good work.

You can see Andrew singing his song with the PS22 choir here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH7NtUaze3I]

Take some time and watch their videos, many of them, on YouTube.

I hadn't watched them in some time but I was reminded today of just how good some of the clips are.

-B