After losing my Leopard at Aspen Grove, I figure I need to buy some more discs.
Champion Leopard – 150-160g, white
Champion Discraft Express – 150g, green
Champion or DX Beast – 150g, blue
DX Polecat – 175g, yellow
DX Roc – 175g, any color
Aerobie Epic, any color
Aerobie Arrow, any color
This is probably $90 worth of discs. By the time I’ve got the funds allocated to go buy them, I’ll have forgotten ever making this journal entry.
As you may know, I work for Novell, and I lead their collaboration product line which for the last decade has centered around the GroupWise email and calendaring product. I’ve spent that entire decade “doing email.”
Google has their “Gmail” service in beta, and their approach looks unique. They’re paying for it by running ads based on the content of the message you’re reading, and instead of being able to file messages in folders, you categorize them and locate them via relevance searches.
The industry is abuzz about whether or not this will fly. Me, I’m doing a little investigation, trying out the beta product to see how it works. I’ve already changed to my gmail addy in my LJ profile (howard.tayler AT gmail.com). It’s going to restrict me to a web browser for these personal messages, but hey, it’s a research project.
I may redirect all my schlockmail there, too, for the time being. After all, the true test of a communications tool is how it holds up under load, and how effectively you communicate when you have to use it.
–Howard
It’s a real bummer discovering that your favorite song from one of your favorite bands has an “explicit” version in which you can FINALLY understand the lyrics, and they a) don’t make sense, and b) have completely gratuitous profanity.
The song is “Promise” by Eve 6.
Lemme say first that in general I love the lyrics from Eve 6. They’re evocative, poetic, and extremely literate. That they bind these lyrics to kickin’ crunch-chords and a great beat only improves the delivery.
I don’t get out and buy albums much anymore now that I’m not running sound for a comedy troupe, so the only Eve 6 album I have is their first one. Yesterday I bought some singles via iTunes, and I paid for “Promise” by Eve 6 twice — once for the non-explicit “radio” version, and once for the explicit version.
The lyric in question runs like this:
“I promise not to try not to [mute] with your mind”
In the non-explicit version the odd turn of grammar and the clutter of instruments masks what should have been obvious. Even if you’re not familiar with the song, you probably know what’s going to go in the [mute] spot.
Grrr… WHY?
Consider first the double-negative. “I promise not to try not to…” means, in effect, “I promise to.” In context, that’s not what’s meant, unless the singer is schizo. A simple change to “I promise that I’ll try not to…” would scan almost as well and make more sense.
Consider now the profanity. The phrase “f*** with your mind” is used all-too-conversationally these days, and is a cheap shot. Sure, sure, the metaphor is vivid: violation of intimately private spaces (the mind) with what SHOULD be intimately private tools (genitals). You take the concept of “rape” and blend it with the concept of “emotional abuse,” and you have a very powerful meme. Great. IT’S BEEN DONE. In the non-explicit version of the song, muting the f-word renders the whole phrase powerless. REPLACING the word, however… THAT would have been artistic.
“mess with your mind” may lack some of the power of the mindrape meme, but it’s alliterative. In the context of good song lyrics, it’s BETTER. Especially if you have to do a non-explicit version of the song. Grrr…
There’s a band that actually did this quite well. Nine Days, “Story of a Girl.” The non-explicit lyric is:
“How many lovers would stay
Just to put up with this every day and all day”
The explict one is :
“How many lovers would stay
Just to put up with this sh** day after day”
The non explicit lyric is more poetic, conveys more meaning (not just every day, but ALL day) and will reach a broader audience by virtue of it being non-explicit. My only gripe there is that when I bought the Nine Days album the version of the song I got was not the one I wanted.
Moral of the story: I’m glad I used iTunes. The lesson I learned yesterday only cost me 99 cents.
–Howard
Got back this morning around 10:00am. The hardwood floors here in the house are now refinished, and that means that instead of returning home to a nice nap on the couch, we came back to a nice move-the-couch-back-where-it-belongs.
Oh, and scripting, and coloring, and 200 unread Novell-related emails, and 500 Schlock-mails (most of those are spam), and Chronicles of Riddick opens today.
(I caught the 1:15 show).
–Howard