Wednesday, February 27, 2013

February Made Me Shiver

February is, generally speaking, a rough month for me. I mean, it's a rough month for most people, especially those living in a northern climate where it's a time associated with frozen snot, fasting and those particularly blightful chunks of snow turned to ice turned to mud repository that cling stubbornly to life far longer than anyone wants them to. It's a time of introspection and self-assessment that goes part-in-parcel with the long nights, broken resolutions and guilty Lenten vows, which is rough enough. On top of that, February is, personally-speaking, a lull in my work year that makes liquid assets depressingly scarce.

And here I am again, another year, still chugging away, in a place not to dissimilar to where I was twelve months ago - is it unfair to feel a bit depressed?

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Six Song Six-Pack - The Musical Coup D'Etat

I hate Bluetooth. And YouTube. And smartphones. 

This will come as no surprise to those who know me but let me reassure them that this isn't one of my usual high-minded, technology-is-forever-altering-humans-attention-span style rants. This time I'm being far more narcissistic.

You see, my college glory days took place at the perfect time for an opinionated music fan such as myself. It was when mp3 players became ubiquitous (by which I mean that I had one - I rarely own a technology before it's already become ubiquitous) but before people always had one with them via their smartphones. This was also before most stereos could be wirelessly connected with such music players or with YouTube, aka the free world's free music library.

Back in those halcyon days of yore, most parties were reliant on whatever actual music libraries were available via computer or mp3 or other headphone jack technology. As you know, most sane people don't lug their iPods around for a Saturday night of partying. Therein lay my advantage.