02.27.06
Posted in rants, iPod, introspective, earbuds, ears, gym, shure at 8:30 pm by admin
Although I absolutely adore my Shure E3c earbuds, I had a bit of a tragedy with them last Thursday after working out at the company gym. I accidentally closed one of the buds in the locker door when I went to take my shower, and didn’t realize until I returned. I reassembled the earbud, thinking everything was fine, so I placed it back into my ear so that I could finish listening to the Feast of Fools podcast, like I do each and every evening.
When I returned to my desk, a co-worker approached me and started talking to me. Out of politeness, I went to remove the earbud from my ear, and it was stuck deep in my ear canal. Not the foam cover, but the entire plastic tip of the earbud itself. This, in fact, had already happened to me once before when I was working at Tommy Hilfiger in New York City. The rubber tip of these same earbuds had come out in my ear, and I was terrified that I would have to go to the emergency room to have it removed. Thankfully, the first aid kit had a pair of plastic emergency tweezers, which saved the day. Today at Yahoo!, no such luck. Not only do I not know where the first aid kit is, but I really didn’t feel like traipsing around building B to find it.
Seeing that I was struggling, the aforementioned co-worker simply walked away. I proceeded to try to pry them out wiith a pair of scissors, which in retrospect was not the smartest idea. Only later was my mind filled with images of falling on said scissors and having them penetrate my brain. Later I realized that I could have been like Phineas Gage, who had his frontal lobe pierced by a railroad spike in the 1800s, lived to tell about it, and was never quite the same. He went from being a nice, socially capable guy, to being an irritable jerk. I wonder if having scissors going through my head would have improved my personality.
Anyway, I cut the inside of my ear, and after it was clear that the scissors wouldn’t be of much help, I decided that I should try to dislodge the earbud a different way: using the handle of a plastic spoon. After about 10 minutes of fighting it, I finally got the bloody earbud piece out of my ear, letting out a huge sigh of relief.
The next day, I resassembled my earbuds using Krazy Glue, and as far as I can tell, they are as good as new, although my psychological state may be a little damaged from the experience.
Tags: earbuds, ears, gym, iPod, rants, shure
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02.23.06
Posted in life, gay, introspective, friends, castro at 8:11 am by admin
I’ve been spending a lot of time with gay people lately. One on one, in groups — I think I’ve met more gay guys since moving to the Bay Area than I’ve met in my entire life. My new life in California seems to have drawn out my homojo (a word shamelessly taken from the title of a Will & Grace episode), if you will.
When Mark and I were together, we never really had any gay friends. Keeping away from the “scene” was his way of keeping all the drama as far away as possible. Needless to say, since he and I met when I was 19, I couldn’t help but think that I might have been missing out on something during my early twenties — and it turns out that I was — but it wasn’t what I thought. Having seen Queer as Folk, I figured that I had only missed out on drug-enhanced sex orgies in the back rooms of steamy night clubs. While I’m happy to say that I did miss that (assuming that it even exists somewhere), I was also missing an opportunity for comradery.
I’ve been so social over the past few weeks that I’ve surprised myself. I’ve gone to karaoke twice, been bowling, met new people from online, gone to brunch, had a mini-cocktail party, and gone out to dinner numerous times, all in the direct company of gay men. Rather than it being a source of stress and drama, it’s been really nice to be able to relate to male friends on a personal level. All my friends have always been girls. I’ll now pause for a moment for the crowd to smirk at the stereotype I’ve effortlessly perpetuated. Now, the girls’ names that have been so much a part of my daily vocabulary — Ami, Jen, Roopa, Jessica, Kelsie — have been augmented, or almost replaced, with guys — Ernie, Andy, Josh, Dominic.
Now, I finally find myself being able to relate to people who are like me in a lot of ways. I’m thinking that this is a product of life in Northern California. I feel like one of the Sneetches with a star on its belly, happily frolicking with my own kind, and that feeling is very freeing to me. My entire life, I’ve really enjoyed being different, and I usually found myself drawn to the “weird” kids. My mother always used to tell me that I’m a “weirdo magnet” because I managed to befriend the opera-singing vampire wiccan lesbians. Now, rather than being one of a crowd of misfits, I feel right at home with others cut from the same mold as me.
Still, with all this newfound “belonging” comes a bit of apprehension. Because I haven’t had many gay male friends, it’s sometimes hard to know how to fit in just right. I find myself doing absurd things, like buying a new outfit to go out on a totally random Friday night, simply because Andy and I will be bar-hopping in the Castro. I ponder whether or not I own enough different pairs of shoes for different occasions. I’ve never really been “one of the crowd” and I’ve generally had very small groups of friends, so going out with people who recognize (and stop to hug) every third guy we see on the street is a very strange experience for me.
I suppose what I’m learning is that at 24, I don’t really need to know exactly who I am or where I do or don’t fit in. But I’ll be damned sure to keep trying. 
Tags: castro, friends, gay, life
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Posted in life, karaoke, introspective, ADD, cleaning, organization at 7:13 am by admin
I spent most of my three-day weekend cleaning.
After brunch on Saturday, and taking Josh to the airport, I headed home to try to sort through the human disaster area that was my apartment. I continued to clean non-stop until 2am, and the next day, I cleaned from 11am until 7pm, all in preparation for company — Andy and Dominic were coming to my apartment for the first time for some Karaoke Revolution and Hangar One lemon drops.
As I was sorting through the mess, I really started to wonder — does anyone else have to spend so much time preparing to have a few guests over on a casual evening? What if I needed to have unexpected company? Being embarrassed of the way that I’m living is a total drain on my psyche, and I’ve tried to get past this issue countless times, all to no avail.
It’s not just my apartment. My Jetta’s trunk is full of things from July when I moved here that I haven’t bothered to unpack yet. I have a box full of unopened mail. A box. This isn’t just any box — it’s the box that my new 20.4″ Samsung LCD monitor came in — the same monitor I was setting up when I should have been cleaning my filthy apartment. That’s a lot of mail. It has piled up so much that I didn’t realize I had received a new Chase MasterCard until I got an email about it. Then, I had to dig through the mounds of mail looking for the one envelope with the real credit card in it (not the one with John Q. Public’s name on it).
I’m happy to say that my social gathering was a success, and that my apartment was immaculate by the time Andy and Dominic arrived, save a few tiny details that I didn’t have time to get to. They had never seen my apartment before, so they couldn’t possibly know the extent of my madness, and thanks to the lack of photographic evidence, they will never have to.
Staring around me from my desk, there are a few tiny things amiss, but Mom was right — it really does feel so much better to work and live and play in a clean space. So why is it that I have such a hard time? I’m a successful web developer with a good job, a nice car (apart from the trunk), and a nice apartment.
Why the self-sabotage?
I used to think it was a lack of motivation. I simply can’t get motivated, I would tell myself. But believe it or not, it all comes back to those three letters: ADD. It’s not that I don’t feel like doing anything — it’s that I have too much that I want to do. Sitting here, concentrating on writing a blog post after over a week of silence is such a relief. Although there are 1,200 different things that I could be doing right now, such as putting away jeans, or watching Sunday’s episode of Charmed, or starting the dishwasher, or folding laundry … the list goes on … I’m focused on something. That’s the sign of a fantastic night.
Tonight was one of those nights. I came home and ate my steak & chili bowl from Quizno’s, and immediately got to work cleaning up what was left of the mess left from last night’s dinner with Dominic. I did what seemed like hours of work but looked at the clock on the microwave and it was barely 10pm. In hardly a blink, my place went back to being almost acceptable.
It’s so incredibly cliché when I think about the concept of “taking things one day at a time” but it seems to be the only thing working for me at the moment. I’m taking inventory of the successes and failures, and if one more thing is gone from my enormous to-do list of life by the time I collapse into bed at night, it should be a mark of success. It’s just hard to keep that in perspective some days.
When there are so many things that I want to do, how can I ever feel fulfilled without finishing them all? And how can I keep that discouragement from preventing me from finishing anything?
Tags: ADD, cleaning, karaoke, life, organization
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02.15.06
Posted in music, introspective, music tuesday, ben folds, Glen Phillips, hangover, iTunes, love, mp3, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Valentine's Day at 4:45 am by admin
It’s Valentine’s Day. Even when I was in a long-term relationship I didn’t really do much to celebrate this day, because my ex and I always felt like it was an overly commercialized holiday. Besides, to me, the elements that really make up abstract concepts like “love” are far more complex and rooted in the things that happen every single day in my life.
To me, love is…
- Spending the entire day cleaning up the vomit that your partner conveniently left in the bathtub while throwing up drunk the night before, all while nursing his hangover between plunging and Drain-O sessions
- Knowing when something isn’t right before he says it and being a source of comfort even when it’s not requested
- Sitting next to him all day as he is pumped full of electrolytes at the hospital to rehydrate him after a bad bout of food poisoning
- Learning to appreciate even his quirkiest, least desirable features, simply because they make up part of a larger whole that wouldn’t be complete without them
- Considering how every decision you make in your life will affect him
- Staying with him the entire day at the airport when he misses his flight, just so that he won’t have to wait for the next flight alone
Candy hearts and flowers are all fine, I suppose. But love isn’t necessarily as easy to define as a Hallmark card. It isn’t always pretty, it’s rarely shiny, and it certainly doesn’t always taste or smell good.
Love is a measure of what level of discomfort you’re willing to put yourself through for the sake of someone whom you care about so much that it hurts.
As my own little tribute to that intensity, my recurring Music Tuesday series features a track by former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips. The track is called Easier (mp3), and I think it really conveys the almost physical pain and desperation that love can cause:
And if you said you were going away
I would run on the tarmac and I would lay down in front of the plane just to get you to stay
The track is from Glen’s amazing 2005 album Winter Pays For Summer, available through iTunes (link: 
). The album has lots of other really thoughtful and well-written songs, and includes guest backing vocals on Courage from my favorite piano-wielding genius, Ben Folds. Do me a favor — if you like the tracks I feature, please consider buying the album on iTunes (or clicking an AdSense link!). The tiny affiliate checks just might pay for the hosting. And that could be one more definition of love — caring about someone enough to finance his web hosting.
Err… maybe not.
Tags: ben folds, Glen Phillips, hangover, iTunes, love, mp3, music, music tuesday, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Valentine’s Day
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Posted in yahoo, work, web development, ajax, calendar, css, flickr, javascript, web at 1:29 am by admin
All I can say is wow.
When I came to Yahoo! to work on the platform team, I knew that the things I’d be building would be used by sites all over the Yahoo! network, and that kind of exposure was something that both excited me and scared me a little. I’ve built things for people to use before, but never to be consumed by an audience as large as Yahoo!’s.
When I started development on the Calendar component, I had no idea that we were moving in the direction of open-sourcing our platform library. The idea of giving back to the community in this way is something that is personally very satisfying to me, and I think that it will probably help me become a better developer as people begin implementing the things we’ve been working on, and making suggestions that will help us improve them.
It still feels a little strange to me to be able to blog so openly about what I’ve been working on for the few months I’ve been at Yahoo! and reading the incredibly positive feedback that we’ve received from various bloggers is a really exciting and validating experience.
I’m so proud to be working with a team of geniuses that consistently and easily solve complex client-side development problems like they’re nothing. I knew when I came to Yahoo! that I’d be around a lot of really smart folks, but I’m still amazed every day by the people sitting in the cubicles around me, and I would like to take a moment to thank them publicly for continually working so hard to see this vision through.
Those fabulous people are Eric Miraglia, Thomas Sha, Nate Koechley, Matt Sweeney, Adam Moore, Jenny Han, and Todd Kloots — and while their combined knowledge overwhelms me on a regular basis, I don’t think there’s a single day that I don’t learn something from these gurus. Thanks also to Bill Scott, the coolest evangelist since Tammy Faye (with much less makeup).
I’ve posted my first Calendar example here on the site, using the Connection and Event utilities, the Calendar component, and the flickr api. You can check it out here.
Here’s to lots more great stuff to come!
Tags: ajax, calendar, css, flickr, javascript, web, web development, work, yahoo
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02.14.06
Posted in life, miscellaneous stuff, anger, baja fresh, customer service, elderly, fry's, retail at 8:08 am by admin
My biggest mistake was thinking that it would be alright for me to go shopping on an empty stomach. I can get cranky when I haven’t eaten anything all day, but Fry’s Electronics was on the way to Baja Fresh, so it seemed completely logical to stop there first.
As I walked through the crowded parking lot towards the giant Egyptian pyramid-themed electronics store, something caught my eye. The inclined automatic walkway that leads to the doors had a group of people just standing on it. At that moment, as one of my worst pet peeves was realized, I knew that this was going to be an especially fun shopping trip.
The purpose of an automatic walkway is not to allow you to stand still and be taken where you’re going. The benefit of this Jetsons-like contraption is that it allows you to get where you’re going faster. While I haven’t figured out the exact mathematical formula, I would guess that you can double the speed of your walk by walking up the moving walkway. However, the people entering Fry’s (awfully close to closing time, I might add) would have none of that. This walkway was there to keep their poorly toned calves from having to perform one single unit of extra work.
As I approached the moving walkway, luckily the lazy people had just stepped off. It would have been a shame if I had to walk through their little crowd of sloth at a reasonable human pace.
This was by no means a pleasure trip. I was braving Fry’s on a Sunday night to find a replacement for my LCD monitor which was on its death bed, flashing on and off repeatedly at the most inconvenient times. So, naturally, my heart was full of joy. After browsing around awhile I found a 20″ Samsung LCD that looked great, and the price wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected, so I approached the salesman.
He was a young, acne-ridden gentleman with a lazy eye who seemed to be easily distracted. Perhaps it was because he was always forced to look in two directions and the same time, but he seemed unable to provide me with any assistance in retrieving the monitor I wanted to purchase. He was distracted by a large man who wanted to inquire about purchasing a small monitor that was placed onto a particle board desk as a display prop. The monitor was clearly several years old and only being used to show how conveniently a monitor could be placed on this piece of substandard furniture, and for some reason this translated into a very long exchange between the lazy-eyed salesman and the large man.
While I waited, I noticed two elderly men arguing over the difference between Windows XP SP2 and Windows XP Media Center 2005, another fat man walking around and clapping his hand occasionally as though he was participating in a performance of Hall & Oates’ Private Eyes that no one else could hear, and another thoroughly displeased group of customers who were also waiting to purchase monitors but were being thwarted by the salesman’s inattention.
At that point, I walked out. I couldn’t take waiting anymore, and I had tacos waiting for me only minutes away. As I quickly stormed through the store, all the thoughts that normally cross my mind in bad customer service situations came flooding back: Should I go tell the manager? I’ll tell him that I was going to make a purchase, but now I’m not! That’ll show ‘em! What’s the district manager’s number? Maybe a phone call or a letter is in order!
But then, a feeling of peaceful acceptance washed over me. I simply let out a sigh and decided that I would save my monitor shopping for Monday evening, at a different location. And that’s exactly what I did. I went out to my car, turned on my iPod, and drove away largely unaffected by the irritating ordeal that I had just endured. Perhaps living in Northern California has taught me something about being calmer, more diplomatic, and not wasting energy on unnecessary anger.
Or maybe I was just really craving those tasty tacos.
Tags: anger, baja fresh, customer service, elderly, fry’s, life, retail
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02.13.06
Posted in life, introspective, blog, blogging, blogs, censorship, honesty, writing at 9:07 pm by admin
An insightful co-worker of mine left a comment on my post about my personal motivation for blogging, and I really think that he asks the million-dollar question:
“…What the difference is between the diary you keep under lock and key and the diary you put on a weblog, knowing that your family, loved ones, friends, coworkers, once and future employers, etc., will read? Are you as honest? More so? Does it matter? Audience always drives rhetoric, even when we don’t know our audience very well. What is your perception of audience doing to enrich (or otherwise) the human story you are contributing here?”
I smiled when I read this comment because Eric asks the exact question that I’ve been struggling with over the past few weeks, especially after having gone back through my journal archives from 1999 to 2004. How much information is appropriate to post? Should I hide certain pieces of information about my life for the sake of being tactful and politically correct? Should I write anything that I would be afraid to tell my mother, or my co-workers?
The reality is that for me, writing is really an exercise in introspection, as well as a way for me to capture a snapshot of where my thoughts are at any given point in time for later reference. A friend and co-worker of mine gave me a very valuable piece of advice a few weeks ago. She said to me, “You should be comfortable with the decisions you make and the things you do in your life. If you aren’t, you’re not being honest with yourself.”
I’ve really taken this to heart. While there are certain personal things that I may choose to blog about privately, the things that I write here should be crafted with utmost honesty, if for nothing else than the sake of historical accuracy. I have friends with popular blogs that have experienced a certain amount of personal drama from being completely straightforward when they write, but ultimately the value of the output usually justifies it.
To answer Eric’s question, I try to be completely honest when I write. I may rant sometimes in a politically incorrect way. I may criticize the government, express distaste for certain population segments (such as bulk discount store shoppers, or circus folk), and I may be self-deprecating at times. However, I want my blog to be a positive window into my own self-reflection, so I will never write something publicly that personally attacks someone I know. It isn’t my intention to hurt anyone, although I’m sure that I will somewhere along the way.
Looking back, I can’t believe some of the things that I wrote freely on a public website, and I can see some very critical mistakes that I may have made. I think some of my candor came from my unawareness of my audience. Now that I’m older (and hopefully wiser), I realize that I’m not writing into a vacuum and that the things I say can affect others. However, anyone who knows me personally knows that it’s pretty hard (and damned near impossible) to shut me up.
If you keep reading, I’ll keep squeaking. I hope you enjoy it. 
Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, censorship, honesty, introspective, life, writing
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02.10.06
Posted in life, introspective, blogging, blogs, digital life manager, dlm at 1:43 am by admin
This week I had an epiphany. That isn’t something that happens to me all that often, I promise.
For some reason, I decided to go looking for my first online diary, which was hosted on diaryland.com back in the days before anyone had even heard the now over-used buzzword blog. I had started the online diary for the purpose of capturing my thoughts and communicating them to others, which is really not all that different from today’s concept of a blog, I suppose.
Scanning through the eleven entries I wrote in December 1999 while I was still a freshman communications major at the University of Houston, I felt like I was reading something that was written by a completely different person. I read myself recalling dreams and nightmares which I’ve long since forgotten, recounting a series of dates with someone whose last name I no longer can remember, and expressing the things that were important to me.
Later, I decided to import all my old LiveJournal entries into my blog as well, and the memories and feelings came flooding back to me — being unhappy at two jobs, being in the midst of a relationship that ultimately lasted 5 years, and glimpses into obscure moments that I had decided to write about for whatever reason, but never expected to be reading 3, 4, or 5 years later. Each of these moments is like a little diorama to me — frozen snapshots of moments in time that are like photographs, but expressed in words, and the feelings I got from reading them were very similar to the ones I experience when looking through a box of old photos, or watching home movies.
Now, I finally understand what my blog should be.
It’s okay for me to talk about things going on in the world, or to comment on interesting things that I hear or read around the web, but the real value in what I write (and the photos that I capture and archive on flickr) is in keeping a history of my life so that I can keep who I am and where I’ve come from in full perspective. I believe it’s really easy on a daily basis to lose track of how you got to where you are today, because we see ourselves in the mirror every day and become so adjusted to what we see that we don’t notice the gradual evolution that we’re going through.
Ultimately, the lesson I learned from the posts I imported is that I need to always continue updating my blog whenever it’s physically possible, and I need to not be afraid to get personal. I hope people enjoy what I’m writing (on days that I’m actually funny, as opposed to this one) but ultimately, it needs to be for me. A coworker of mine, David Beach, is an enthusiastic advocate of what he calls a Digital Life Manager — a tool that aggregates everything about a person’s life digitally, from journals, to images, to other types of media — and ultimately creates the story of a person’s life.
Welcome to my Digital Life Manager. It’s just a blog today, and it doesn’t track everywhere I go and everything I do (yet), but wherever I am in 2016, I can look back to this day and all the days between, and have a crystal-clear picture of my late twenties and early thirties. I don’t know how long I will live, but even if I never become a published author, I know that when I’m gone people will be able to look back and see what my days were like and what was going on in my head, and in that way I believe that this is not only an exercise in personal nostalgia, but my contribution to the human story.
Tags: blogging, blogs, digital life manager, dlm, introspective, life
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02.08.06
Posted in life, introspective, frustration, jetta, josh, relationships at 10:57 pm by admin
Last night I was on my way home, driving my black diesel Jetta, listening to the previous day’s Randi Rhodes podcast as I often do during my short commute home. As I was laughing at her rants about John Ashcroft, Oprah, and Bush’s lies, something horrible happened.
Flashback to the weekend.
I had noticed on Sunday that my fuel light was on, and I knew that I needed to fill up soon. Generally speaking, however, I’m used to being able to go quite some distance on empty because of my car’s outstanding fuel economy. I telecommuted Monday because I wasn’t feeling well, and didn’t really think twice on Tuesday about driving to work on a low tank because I’d easily be able to make it to work and to the diesel station closest to home without a problem.
Boy, did I miscalculate.
I went to Fry’s Electronics in Sunnyvale last night on my way home so that I could purchase a sound card for the new desktop computer I built on Sunday, but it was only a minor detour from my usual route.
On I-880 I began to realize that I was having difficulty accelerating. I was going 60. Then, 50. Then I began to say, out loud, “Oh crap! Oh crap! Please don’t die! Please don’t die!”
All my pleading was completely useless. I put on my hazard flashers and slowly tried to maneuver the car to the side of the highway. Conveniently, that portion of the interstate had no shoulder. So, I had the pleasure of sitting in the right lane right after an onramp with my flashers on, hoping that my battery wouldn’t die and praying that no one would hit me from behind.
I didn’t know what to do. I have roadside assistance with my warranty, but I knew I was in a tough spot and that it would take anyone a really long time to arrive to help me. It was almost 10pm, and my options were few. So, I called Josh.
As I explained the story to him and begged him to go get some diesel and bring it to me, I couldn’t help but feel like a total f*ck-up. Things have been strained between us since last week, and I had offered to give him some “space”. Saying that you’re giving “space” to someone you’re dating is really a polite way of saying, “I like you, but I think I’m getting on your nerves and I want to get out of your hair for awhile so you don’t stop liking me back.”
Asking Josh to put on clothes over his pajamas, drive to the gas station, purchase a gas can, fill it with diesel, and bring it to me on the busy interstate at 10pm is not exactly my ideal execution of “space”, so I felt insanely pathetic and needy, but he was the only person I knew nearby who could help me.
“Hopefully this little fiasco will teach you a lesson,” he said to me after he agreed to come to my rescue.
While I was waiting for him to arrive, I had my first encounter with the California Highway Patrol. A trooper pulled in front of me, and I approached his squad car to explain that help was on the way. He proceeded to pull back behind my car, and using the front of his car, he pushed me in neutral over to the shoulder about 100 feet past where my car had died.
I was amazed not only by the power of his patrol car’s engine, but also by how clearly I could hear him telling me to put on my seatbelt using his megaphone, even with the windows shut. The officer appeared quite obviously to be checking my plates (to make sure I’m not the stupid car thief who runs out of gas, I suppose) and then, he just left. Poof. No goodbye, nothing.
While I waited for Josh to arrive, I snapped some photos by which to commemorate this irritating occasion. I mused briefly about how absurdly vain I might have looked sitting on the highway in a dark car, photographing myself.
Josh arrived after a few minutes had passed, 1-gallon canister of diesel in hand. At first I was worried he might be annoyed with me because of his comment on the phone, but he seemed reasonably calm, considering the situation and his state of exhaustion. I poured the fuel into the tank, but the car just wouldn’t start. The engine turned and turned, but no matter what I did, it just wouldn’t start. My thoughts immediately turned to the fact that I was wasting battery power and might end up with a dead battery and an engine that wouldn’t start.
I’m generally pretty smart about cars, but I had no idea what could be wrong. Maybe the fuel needs more time to drip down into the tank? I thought, although that was a pretty stupid theory, considering that diesel doesn’t have the consistency of molasses.
As I’m pacing nervously around the car trying to figure out what to do next, patrol car #2, this time with two officers, arrives behind us. I explain the situation, and one of the officers says to me in a concerned tone, “Oh, it’s a diesel. You may have air in the tank. You may have to purge the fuel line.” As I’m trying to process this horrible news, he explains that they’re going to push my car to the next exit to a gas station right off the highway, which conveniently doesn’t have diesel.
Josh drives me to a nearby station, where I buy a larger 2-gallon gas can and fill it with diesel. My hope is that refilling the original empty can, along with this new one, will give me enough fuel to coax the stubborn car into starting. When we arrive back at the station where my car is parked, I notice that some fuel has spilled into Josh’s trunk. I have diesel all over my hands from picking up the containers. I try to empty the larger can into the tank, spilling some here and there, and try to start the car once more.
It won’t start. I’m on the verge of panicking. So I attach my portable battery charger to the car battery for some extra juice, and just let the engine keep cranking and cranking, frantically praying for the car to start. About 15 seconds later, the familiar sound of the engine starting nearly makes my heart stop, and I collapse with relief.
I sat in the car with Josh for a few minutes talking about the issues we’ve been dealing with, and explaining to him that the “space” thing was only my way of overreacting about what had happened between us and trying to make things right. I apologized profusely for troubling him, especially when I was supposed to be backing off, but he remained kind and calm, as always, and told me with a smile that I shouldn’t worry so much.
As I drove home, the stink of my diesel-coated hands mixing with the chilly night air, I pondered many things –my stupidity for letting the tank get to empty, my misfortune in not being able to get to a station before running out, the overabundance of friendly state troopers in California — but most importantly how lucky I was to have someone who would come rescue me even when things aren’t perfect between us. I suppose I shouldn’t worry so much.
Overall, it was a great night.
Tags: frustration, jetta, josh, life, relationships
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02.07.06
Posted in music, depeche mode, iPod, music tuesday, iTunes, mp3, alphaville, crystal method, devo, download, echo and the bunnymen, erasure, howard jones, INXS, morrissey, new order, new wave, remixes, review, richard x, synthpop, the cure, tiga, yaz at 10:24 pm by admin
Okay, I will admit it. I’m a remix fiend. Some of my favorite versions of songs by the artists that I love are remixed. However, I’m pretty picky about the remixes I like.
For instance, if you’re going to remix Into the Groove, don’t waste my time by just looping Madonna saying “…and you can dance!” over and over again. The measure of a good remix, in my opinion, is whether it maintains enough of the original song to be recognizable, and whether it is musically engaging. Placing a cappella Cher vocals over a tribal beat does not qualify. However, take those same vocals and rework them over some Spanish flamenco guitar, and we might just talk.
Future Retro, a compilation that was released today, is a pure synthpop new wave masterpiece. It is one of the rare discs that follows the magic formula of combining amazing artists (Erasure, New Order, Depeche Mode, Morrissey), songs that were great to begin with (A Little Respect, Bizarre Love Triangle, Suedehead), and retooled versions by remixers who are actually talented (Tiga, Richard X, The Crystal Method).
The best part of this album is that the remixes are very true to the synthesized new wave roots of the songs. Instead of awkwardly forcing these classic gems into awful uptempo Dance Dance Revolution-style Europop mixes performed by boring stock vocalists (case in point: DJ Sammy’s Heaven), these productions, many of which are down-tempo, feel organic and natural. There’s none of that frequent feeling of disappointment I get with remixes: “I really like the song, but it just wasn’t meant to be remixed!”
Standout tracks include the synth-heavy Jaded Aliiance remix of A Little Respect, a totally glam rock remix of Book of Love’s Boy, and a minimalistic (yet still melodic) remix of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle.
For your listening pleasure, here’s a sample track from the album, which can be purchased through iTunes.
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method Extended Mix)
Track List (from Amazon)
1. Walk (Infusion Mix) — The Cure
2. Situation (Richard X Remix) — Yaz
3. Lips Like Sugar (Way Out West Remix Edit) — Echo and the Bunnymen
4. Need You Tonight (Static Revenger Mix Edit) — INXS
5. Shake the Disease (Tiga Remix) — Depeche Mode
6. Little Respect (Jaded Alliance ‘Electrospect’ Remix) — Erasure
7. New Song (Peter Black & Hadrock Striker Mix Edit) — Howard Jones
8. Forever Young (Hamel Album Mix) — Alphaville
9. Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method Extended Mix) — New Order
10. White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It, Elite Force Mix) — Grandmaster & Melle Mel
11. Girl U Want (Black Light Odyssey Mix) — Devo
12. NoWhere Girl (Adam Freeland Mix) — B-Movie
13. Boy (DJ Irene Rockstar Mix) — Book of Love
14. Suedehead (Sparks Remix) — Morrissey
Tags: alphaville, crystal method, depeche mode, devo, download, echo and the bunnymen, erasure, howard jones, INXS, iPod, iTunes, morrissey, mp3, music, new order, new wave, remixes, review, richard x, synthpop, the cure, tiga, yaz
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