Not A Blog™

When it comes to the Not A Blog™, I always hesitate to write about things I like. For one thing, it’s just more fun to read my rants on things I don’t like. For another thing, there are so many viral marketing campaigns going on, you can’t even talk to someone about some product without wondering if they really do like it, or if they’re being compensated for it in some way. Turn that around, and I can assure you that the last thing I want to be is a vehicle for advertising stuff I like all the time. I don’t get compensated for it, though (that’s good), for what that’s worth.

Also, I’m always concerned that people will take it the wrong way. This has happened to me on a number of occasions: I’ll mention how good I think something is, and someone will come back with, “are you being sarcastic?” And then I have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to convince them that I’m serious—I really do like this thing that much.

Even worse, sometimes I’m so overly enthusiastic that people have told me to calm down. It’s really annoying because I swear—I swear to freakin’ God—that other people are just as enthusiastic in other situations. But as soon as I try to do it, everyone looks at me weird and inevitably someone tells me I need to chill. (It happens when I’m frustrated, too.) This has baffled me on so many occasions that I try to avoid being impassioned about stuff because I’m obviously not doing it properly. What are the rules here? When am I allowed to get excited? I don’t get it. Some of you might be wondering what in the world I’m talking about because you’ve never seen me that way—with good reason.

But I do get excited about things. These are a few things I’ve been excited about recently. I’ve lumped them together in one post to kill some time on both our parts.

The RIAA

No, not that RIAA—that’s what I was thinking, too, at first. I’m actually talking about the Robotic Intergalactic Astro-Artists and their album, Sounds for the Space Set.

This is the best thing since Star People. (Speaking of which—what’s up with those guys? They must have returned to their home planet, seeing as how they disappeared off the face of the Earth.) Not only is Sounds space themed, but the tracks are without a doubt, no joke, the best mash-ups I’ve ever heard. Most mash-ups are good for a laugh but not so good for the long term listening. Indeed, aside from the initial novelty factor, they usually sound like crap.

Not these guys. They have mash-ups which are better than the original songs. They beat-match and pitch-shift everything so there’s no dissonance; no awkward phrasing. The attention to detail is fantastic; the result is…just go listen. My favorites include Sexy Caravan, Intergalactic Centerfold, and The Wonder is All Around Us. But there’s really not a bad song in the bunch.

Party of One by Anneli Rufus

I shouldn’t be allowed to talk about this book because I’m still reading it. But it fits in the article, and I’m not sure that I would want to write a review about it anyway, so I’ll discuss it here.

The book is subtitled, The Loners’ Manifesto, which should tell you what you need to know. I hate to keep beating the introvert bush here (that’s what Stranger is for), but that is what the book’s about, after all. I was nodding so hard at everything the author was talking about that I’m 90% sure I pulled a neck muscle. (That’s actually not a joke.) I’m trying not to read it all in one sitting; I just want to savor it. Heck, I even love the typography. A pet peeve of mine is inappropriate typefaces used for body copy. This book is set in Monotype Baskerville—which no one cares about but me, I know. It’s such a beautiful face for text that’s not Garamond and it’s the perfect choice. I didn’t even want to breathe on the page, lest the characters flutter away.

This book is what my Nanowrimo novel from last year was “supposed” to be. Mine turned out rant-like (I’ve already adapted some material for the Not A Blog™, so that worked out), but this one is more reserved and less bitter. It’s also more comprehensive, going into more categories, better, and actually citing sources. Not to mention it’s well written. It’s written in such a way as to be accessible by everyone, and it does a good job of getting the point across that there are some people who just want to be left alone, always, and this isn’t bad, and stop bothering us about it. But in a nice way.

Casio Privia PX-100 Digital Piano

I play this thing almost every day and I love it. (I also still suck, but I don’t care.) It’s got 88 weighted keys and it mostly sounds like a piano and that’s good enough for me. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, and even though I generally find reviews to be quite accurate, even I was suspicious at how much praise this thing got. I don’t have any experience with playing actual pianos, so I can’t really compare it to anything, but I think it’s great. It’s been a year and a half since I took up piano and I’m still playing, so it’s definitely been money well spent—and yet, it was inexpensive compared to most digital pianos on the market. I enjoy value.

The Amazing Mandelbrot Set

I’m not referring to just the Mandelbrot Set itself, I’m refering specficially to the DVD of Mandelbrot Set zooms called The Amazing Mandelbrot Set. The Mandelbrot set is pretty amazing, as this DVD so clearly demonstrates. The only downside to purchasing this is that after I watched them all, I went online to do more research about this only to discover there are about seventeen quintillion free programs that will generate the Mandelbrot Set a la what you see on the disc. (Well, okay, maybe four.) Of course that takes computational power (and none of them run on a Mac), so I guess if you just want to watch without doing all the heavy lifting, this disc has what you’re looking for. The music is pretty catchy, too.

Along those lines, I’ve always wondered if anyone has thought about adapting Google Maps technology to the Mandelbrot set. It could be pre-rendered to however many levels of zoom you wanted and that way it wouldn’t be any slower to zip around than the actual maps are now. Maybe if there’s some interesting structure right on the cusp of the maximum zoom, you could put in a request for a deeper zoom to that area which would be computed and spit back in a few minutes. I can’t think of a practical application for this—although there very well could be—but even so, it would be a lot of fun.

Western Digital’s My Book

I got this external hard drive a few months ago and have been blown away. Between work and home, I’ve edited at least thirty hours of video on these drives (taking well over two hundred hours of actual editing time) and they’ve all performed flawlessly. It’s a huge amount of storage for a great price. The drives are solid, well constructed, quiet. You can get them in various configurations (for example, with a firewire interface, or without) and sizes across a bunch of price points. If you’re looking for an external hard drive, I can’t recommend this line enough. Mine is already 90% full and, while I guess I could clean off some of those old video projects, a brand new drive is so cheap, I should just buy another one. In fact, the model I bought is already eighty bucks cheaper than when I purchased it about six months ago. It just goes to show you how fast hard drive technology is advancing. For me, personally, I believe I’ve reached a point where I no longer need to delete anything. I’ll just buy more storage.

Those are a few things I’ve been enjoying lately. They’re all great to the point where I have difficulty saying enough good things about them. I suppose, at this point, I need to go hunt down some things I don’t like so I can get back into the swing of making fun of things. It’s bad for my blood pressure, but more entertaining.

-Ted