Inspired by my brother’s post, I decided to share some of my iTunes statistics, just for the hell of it. iTunes is (and probably will be for a long, long time) the way I store and listen to music, whether at home or on the go with the iPod. So everything I have is in there.
Sorted by song title:
First Song: “-” by Guster (from Keep It Together)
Last Song: “ZX81″ by Pitchshifter
Sort by time:
Shortest Song: “Untitled” by Pete Yorn (from Day I Forgot)
Longest Song: KCHAT radio by various artists (from the GTA Vice City soundtrack)
Sort by album:
First: ( ) by Sigur Rós
Last: Zaireeka (disc 4) by The Flaming Lips
Top 10 most played songs
1. “Wonderwall” by Ryan Adams (77 plays)
2. “Go To Sleep” by Radiohead (70 plays)
3. “Primitive (The Way I Treat You)” by Ambulance Ltd (67 plays)
4. “Kissy Kissy” by The Kills (63 plays)
5. “Hitched” by The Kills (63 plays)
6. “Ha Ha High Babe” by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (57 plays)
7. “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet (57 plays)
8. “A Perfect Day Elise” by PJ Harvey (56 plays)
9. “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers (55 plays)
10. “Dear Prudence” by The Beatles (54 plays)
(I can’t believe R.E.M. doesn’t show until #21! This doesn’t really reflect my overall music trends. Interesting.)
Continue reading ‘iTunes statistics meme’
I’m currently reading “Moving Mars” by Greg Bear, and I stumbled upon this brilliant image of the red planet today, so I thought I’d share.
We will go there some day…
Maybe they’ll need a graphic designer on the ship. What? You doubt it? Damn!
I knew I should have been an astrophycisist/astronaut.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Both of my Superbowl hopefuls were crushed today. That’s pretty disheartening. [sigh]
Forget the postgame show. I think I’ll just watch this Ray Kurzweil presentation about the Singularity on Book TV. It’s less spirit-crushing.
Michelle and I caught a lovely Friday night showing of “Syriana”, the oil business would-be whistle blower flick starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, among other talents. Clooney plays an aging CIA agent (with a killer beard, I might add) whose expertise in Mideast conflict and how to play it is slowly losing its usefulness. The story, written by Stephen Gaghan of “Traffic” fame, is a loose covering thrown over the movie’s moral framework.
What is the framework? Basically, that it’s in the United States oil business’ best interest for the Mideast to be in turmoil, and that’s one of the reasons our government isn’t very good at patching that region up. There’s one poignant scene between Damon, who plays an American lawyer working for a Swiss law firm, and a young Arab prince, whom we until the scene assumed was an unstable fundamentalist. Educated at Harvard, the prince states his desire to create a true democracy, a real economy and a modern society once his monarch father dies. Unfortunately, the U.S. president “asks” the oil-rich Arabs to pull money from their social programs and spend it on overpriced jetliners because “there’s unemployment in Washington state.” Sadly, that prince doesn’t succeed his father. Instead, his greedy American puppet of a younger brother succeeds, probably because the father was pressured by the Americans again.
It’s a great thriller, if it does chug along rather slowly. It’s not anti-American. Mostly it is opposed to the methods our government employs to keep the oil flowing from the Mideast to the U.S.
I couldn’t agree more.
“The Merchant of Venice” isn’t very funny for a comedy. I know, I know, a comedy isn’t defined as being funny, it’s defined as being lighthearted with a happy ending. While the latter is true, the former is challenged by some seriously heavy themes and situations, such as one character very nearly having a pound of flesh cut from his breast.
What I came away from the play remembering the most was the harsh stereotyping of the Jewish villain, Shylock. While he is the villain, and a cruel one at that, the modern reader can’t be entirely without sympathy for him. Shylock tells of his mistreatment at the hands of several of the main characters, who have spit on him and been generally cruel. They berate and belittle Shylock merely for being a Jew, and Shylock seems to be the only character who has a problem with that. So it is no surprise that he lashes out. He even asks in the play that if he is to be treated as a dog, why is everyone surprised when he strikes out like one?
Continue reading ‘The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare’
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