BeMused

My friend Jeff gave me about fifteen iTunes caps last night, because he’s unable to load iTunes onto his PC (apparently he’s still running ME, the poor schlep…). So during lunch today, I decided to load the caps into my account, and then start browsing.

I dug deeper into the Music Store than I normally do, browsing instead of just picking an artist and searching for them. Talk about a trip down memory lane. They have the Billboard Top 100 all the way back to 1946 (though there were only 41 chart toppers then…), and I have spent a lot of time in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It’s amazing how much the musical landscape changed between those years. I find artists I haven’t thought of in years, but remember listening to on the radio.

Hearing these songs brought back memories of my mom sitting at the kitchen table, doing the crossword puzzle in The Oregonian, and having the radio on. “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty and pretty much anything by Billy Joel were two constants. I also remember lying in bed at night, the radio softly playing as Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night” played.

Every time I go to the iTunes Music Store, I just love it more.

While in the Apple Store on Saturday, I was checking out one of the “dream” machines (Dual 2.5 G5 with the 30-inch Display, yummy), when the guy who was checking out the machine next to me struck up a conversation. He remarked on how stylish the computers were, and how sharp they looked compared to a Windows machine. He made an observation on how I seemed to really know what I was doing, and asked what I did. I said I worked as a QA engineer and had all three platforms (Mac, Windows and Linux) at my desk to use as I saw fit.

He was impressed, and then proceeded to ask if I liked what I did. This was my first tip…something’s fishy here. But I pressed on, and said it was alright, nothing special. Then he said his “Company” (note, no name given) was always looking for someone to make some extra money, and I was obviously smart and tech-savvy, and that he and his “business associates” (tip #2) were always looking for sharp people. He then asked if I was interested in making some extra money.

I glanced over at him, and then said “Amway?” The quick look of recognition, surprise and almost guilt crossed his face. He came back with a quick “No!”, so I said “Quixtar then” and he didn’t have a quick response. I smiled at him, said “Been there, done that, no thanks…” and we shook hands and walked our seperate ways.

So yes, there’s my dirty little secret. I was in Amway. I can smell a distributor coming a mile away now. People try to cold call me and I get them before they get me. It’s made me a stronger person. I’m a better man for it, for now I know. Now I know…

Wow, almost two weeks and no entry. Not good, not good. In order to improve a skill, one must practice it diligently. As I wish to be a better writer, I need to write more often. Aside from class work, this is where I write the most, so this lack of writing is not going to help me at all.

But I haven’t been idle. I’ve been working on some CSS stuff, and basically trying to get better at it. I created a cleverly titled CSS Laboratory and in there I’m posting my different attempts, or “experiments” if you will, at various CSS tricks and layouts and what not. What I have up there right now is pretty generic stuff, but hopefully soon I’ll attempt to take the CSS Zen Garden challenge (if you will) and see what I can produce with that.

Other than that, I’ve been introduced to GarageBand and I’m dying to get better acquainted with it. I bought a Griffen Garage Band Guitar Cable which can plug directly into the input on your Mac sound card and then play through GarageBand. There are various amp effects that can make your guitar sound like pretty much anything you want. It’s quite a piece of work. I went to the local Apple Store and saw a demonstration by a guy who was definitely not a musician, who proved how easy this thing is to use to make simple, enjoyable music.

Naturally, after getting the guitar cable, I discovered my Mac doesn’t even have a soundcard with an input jack. So now I’m shopping for an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card. And that led me to discover that as far as computer stores go, we don’t have squat in this area.

Which is a whole other post in itself

I feel guilty.

Because I’m under time contraints, I made one of the websites that I’ve been tasked to do with tables. Yes, I feel guilty because I used tables, weird as that sounds. Tables are quick and dirty and easy to use and layout, and pretty much every browser treats them the same. Or at least close enough as to not matter.

I really enjoy using CSS and standards and being proper and all that when building my webpages. I just didn’t have time to figure out why IE was being snooty and not accepting my CSS. So after several frustrations, I gave up and used tables.

I gave up, ’cause I couldn’t figure it out and I was out of time. Bah.

Early Sunday, I was heading out to help a friend move into her new house. I wanted to stop by 7-11 to get a fountain soda (some people wake up with liquid tar, i.e. coffee…I choose liquid corrosive). I walked into my convenient, open 24 hours a day 7-11 and discovered the Diet Pepsi fountain (my drink of choice) was busted. It’s been busted for better than a month now. This perturbed me a bit, as I was really looking forward to fountain soda. So I decided to go to my other convenient, open 24 hours a day 7-11 which was just about 3 minutes away.

When I walked in there, I was pleased to see no “Out of Order” sign, so I filled up my 32oz. cup with ice, and popped it under the dispenser. Only to discover that the machine had no CO.

Mmm…. yummy, liquid un-diluted corrosive!

Ok, maybe not. So, disgruntled, I grabbed a bottle of Diet Pepsi from the cooler, and hopped on the road for the 40-minute trip to my friends.

I got there about 15 minutes before nine, and still wanting that fountain drink, I scoped out the nearest 7-11 (It’s not hard, there’s on every 2 1/2 blocks it seems). I found one, and walked in to check out the situation.

First check: No “Out of Order” sign. This is good, but as I’ve been burned by this before, I approach the machine with caution.
Second check: I hit the dispenser with my finger, prior to committing myself to filling a cup with ice to make sure there’s CO. Success! The mixture looks great!

Pleased, I grab my cup (32oz. of course), fill it with some ice, then to the brim with Diet Pepsi. Put a lid on, pop a straw in, and head to the register to pay. Out the door, sit in the car and take my first glorious sip of my fountain soda.

*GACK* :: SPEEEW ::

Naturally, the mixture is ALL wrong and I got a nice mouthful of about 98% CO and 2% syrup. Apparently just enough to give it some color.

That’s it. I give up on fountain sodas.