HOME

MUSIC

2001 Archives:
May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2002 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2003 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2004 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2005 Archives:
January, February


ENLOWSPEAK

GAMES

Song of the Day
(on permanent hiatus)


AIM: Lenlow1
lenlow@gmail.com

......Friends......
Brother Matt
Sister Kate
DRS1
RedBill
Millinerd
Shmannie
Abe
Hannah
......Other......
Fark
MetaFilter
B3ta
Friendster
Internet Movie Db
Parallax View

......Web Rings......
< ? bostonites # >
< ? Blog+Philes # >
< ? spellage # >



Clix.

Oh right, I was gonna put more old family photos on here.

To the left is an old family favorite taken circa 1979, I'd say. That's Matt and myself. I'm the one in the "MATTHEW'S BROTHER" shirt.

The picture at right is from 1992 I believe. I don't remember why we felt like reenacting the old picture, but we thought it was funny. I think we're dressed up because of Matt's high school graduation.

---

I just read that Aaron Boone might miss the '04 season due to a basketball injury.

It's weird, but Boone might actually be the Yankee I hate the least, even considering what he did on that awful awful day in October. From what I hear he's a good guy, and I think he played third base for both of my championship fantasy baseball teams. And he's only played for the Yankees for a few months. But still... the Red Sox fan in me thinks "One Yankee down, a couple dozen to go."

February 20: Pitchers and catchers report for Spring training.
April 4: Opening day (for the Sox, anyhoo).

Oh, and... GO PATS, I suppose.

---

At around 2 AM this morning some car alarm went off about a block away. It had an irregular rhythm to it, and after about five minutes it would stop, and then five minutes later it would start again. That was the worst... thinking that it was over each time it stopped. This was still going on at 3:30, and that's when I remembered I had some earplugs somewhere. Those pretty much did the trick, except memories of the noise were still happening in my head.

Long story short, I'm tired.

Dave (housemate) tells me today "I had a dream that I was in a game show and was getting all the questions wrong."

---

Here's a fonky musical toy. Make sure your volume's up. The sampling part is preally cheesy, but the mixing board sounds really good. Mmm... drums...

---

This morning as I was in line to hit the exit ramp from 2 to 95, this guy just suddenly cut in front of me. That's not strange or anything... it happens to me a lot on that exit in the morning. But then he put up his hand, as if to wave "thanks!" This would be perfectly acceptable (and appreciated) if he had used his blinker and I had intentionally slowed up to let him in. But that didn't happen. I practically had to slam on the brakes. Could the wave have meant "sorry"? If so, apology not accepted. Maybe the wave meant "SUCKERRRRR!!!!!"

---

MusicPlasma: "the music visual search program."

This thing is pretty awesome. It's a huge map of artists, and you can see what artists might be similar to artists you like. They have many more recommendations for me than I would have thought. Groups I haven't heard of.

A great interface (provided your browser/computer can handle it), and what may be the coolest feature is that if you click on an artist they play you lots of clips of their music, as well as show you the artist's discography on the left.

Oy, I wish I didn't have work to do.

---

One Hit Wonder Central is a fun site to look around. This seems like an excellent place to discover music I've never heard before, and an even better place to reminisce about your childhood.

It sure is a shame (but not necessarily a surprise) that these artists are considered one-hit wonders: Deee-Lite, Biz Markie, 3rd Bass, Digable Planets.

---

Picture Pages Picture Pages lots of fun with Picture Pages...

Matt recently digitized a few of our favorite old family photos and I'd like to share some with you. I'll do it in installments and post the others later this week.

This is Katie and Domino pictured at right. Poor Katie didn't have a sister to play dress-up with (or brothers who let her hang out with them), but fortunately for her Domino was such a great sport... may he rest in peace. "Poor, poor Domino" is what Matt and I would say time and time again... and I think it certainly applies here.

---

Congratulations to Davis Square's own Someday Cafe, ranked the #1 coffeeshop in THE WORLD by Millinerd.

---

Let's say you're on a stairmaster, and it's on a really low setting. So when you step on a stair, there isn't much resistance and it lowers relatively quickly. Then let's say you crank it up to a higher setting. Then when you step on a stair there is more resistance, and it takes a longer time to lower. My question is this: why is the higher setting more work? You definitely exert a lot more effort on the higher setting, but why? You're not changing the distance that you have to lift your legs, like if you were climbing a steeper hill. You're not really pushing down on your foot, you're just letting gravity bring your foot and the stair down, right? So it seems to me like you're climbing the same set of stairs, just doing it a lot slower. Which would make you less tired, no? Someone enlighten me.

---

A Princeton student made a satirical rap song called "Generic Rap Song" and it's hilarious. I recommend downloading it and reading the lyrics while you listen. Funny funny poop, and so true. My favorite part is their DMX impersonation.

---

Business been bad? Church attendance down? Stupid? Just pay the good folks at ISeeJesus.com to create a "miraculous" likeness... and you'll be the talk of the town.

---

I created/discovered a palindrome today that actually makes sense: "Pupils slip up." That's way better than "Eli maybe lop me, totem pole by a mile", which I forcefully created back in middle school.

A word nerd's work is never done.

---

Everyone should read this list of the "100 most misspelled words". However, look at what it says about "judgement":

"Judgement" is governed by one of the rare rules of English orthography, so why not enjoy it? After [c] and [g], [e] is retained to indicate the letter is "soft," i.e. pronounced like [s] or [j], respectively. Omitting it indicates it is "hard," i.e. pronounced [k] or [g], as in "fragment," "pigment". If we write "management," "arrangement," we should write "judgement," "acknowledgement," "abridgement." The presence of the [d] is of no significance to English orthography.

I always thought that "judgment" was the correct spelling, and that only recently "judgement" has become acceptable as a variant due to everyone spelling it that way. But this list tells you that "judgment" is wrong and I must disagree. I agree that "judgement" should be the correct spelling if you consider "rules" and compare it with other words, but when has English spelling ever followed rules?

UPDATE: Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com back me up.

I trust Bartleby.com most of all, and they say: "Judgment is the more commonly used American spelling, but judgement (the usual British spelling) is a Standard American variant, even though not widely used in Edited English."

Case closed. Isn't this fun?

---

I have another music recommendation. "He Leadeth Me" by Katie Enlow. The live version. Tonight I'm going to try to convert the cassette tape recording to an MP3 so I can share it with you all. (Hey Matt, can I borrow some server space?)

---

I have a music recommendation. And unlike all other recommendations, this one will actually be accompanied be a downloadable MP3! The artist is !!! and the song is "Me and Giuliani Down By the School Yard [A True Story]". That's not a typo... the name of the band consists of three exclamation points. I don't even know how you would pronounce that. Kids these days, I tell ya. Anyway, it's a long song with several different parts tied together by an energetic drum track. It's kinda got a disco feel to it. The vocals are nothing special, but what I love about it is the guitars. At about 2:30 the key changes and the guitars do something cool that there might be a name for but I don't know it. That's when I switch from air-drumming to air guitar. Then after the instruments fade out and leave the drums going strong, the guitars come back with a new riff and the climax of the song. After a few more bars the song goes downhill from there; that's when I usually hit << and start it over.

Well, I like it anyway. Download the MP3 from this guy's "Top Ten of 2003" page.

---

What do the following songs have in common?

Radiohead - "Black Star"
Edwin Starr - "War"
Ben Folds Five - "Brick"
Paul McCartney - "Jet"
Huffamoose - "James"
Phish - "Free"
Prince - "Cream"

If you need a hint, in the comments I put some more songs that fall in the same category.

---

This video gives me carpal tunnel syndrome just watching it. A Rubik's cube solved in 44 seconds... with one hand.

This guy took a picture of himself every day for a year. Quite a transformation, I'd say. So that's what a couple situps a day will do for you...

(Found both of these on TheDailyColumn.com.)

---

I made an exciting music discovery yesterday. Exciting to me... probably not to you. I was over Mom's house for dinner (Broccoli Casserole and Heather's Chicken.... cha-ching!) and she was playing the Nina Simone CD Katie got her for Christmas. It's great mood music... old blues stuff. Anyway, at the end of the ten-minute song "Sinnerman" I suddenly heard the beginning of Talib Kweli's "Get By". You know, the part with the lady singing unintelligibly. Well it turns out that lady is Nina Simone, not Talib Kweli!.

Good story, huh. Well maybe it's just me that's fascinated with artists sampling other artists. I've done a lot of research at the-breaks.com to find some of the original music behind my favorite songs, but it's nice when the samples just find you by accident.

---

Check it out: a rotating four-dimensional cube projected onto a three dimensional hyperplane. Just one of the cool things you can check out at Mathematik.com. Learning is fun!

Okay, Matt's probably the only one who will appreciate that site. There's some really advanced stuff in there. I used to know what Abelian groups are...

---

Presenting the IRC Bible. I only read Genesis 4 (Cain and Abel), and I didn't "get" some of it, but it still cracked me up. See, I've never actually used IRC and have rarely been in chatrooms... my geekiness knows those bounds. But I have spent enough time on IM that I can say... true.

* Abel has left IRC (Connection reset by peer)
{Cain} heh
* Jehova has joined #Earth
{Jehova} wtf, where's Abel gone
{Jehova} I'd like some more lamb fs
{Cain} er... dunno
{Cain} Am I my brother's keeper?
{Jehova} Well, there's only four of you here
{Jehova} so how hard would it be to... OMG!

---

Yay, more pictures. Check out this great shot Matt took of Ash when we were at Mom's house for Christmas. And stay tuned to Matt's site... word on the street is he'll soon post some other pics he took during the holiday season.

---

Bill recently scanned a couple of old pictures that I thought I'd share. They're from about 8 years ago, when we were sophomores at Wheaton. This is what we did for fun... pretended to be the Beastie Boys. Here's Bill, Daverear and me, and here's me, Bill and Hansen. Those were good times. Lots of memories are coming back... ball-in-the-hall, Nort, Amigo's Pizza, Desperado, Public Enemy, Command & Conquer, Led Zeppelin, The Professional, all-nighters before Snow Crew, Night Stand...

Hmm, it's like all I did back then was watch movies, play video games and listen to music. Boy how I've changed.

---

Just stopping in to say hello and a belated Happy New Year. I don't have much to say. Instead how about I direct you to Abe's site, which today features a very amusing tale of the perseverance of the human spirit.

Oh and this is a nice little flash animation. I like it because it has drums and makes no sense. Not unlike myself.

---