Modern Or Classic

As some of you know I acquired my parent's record collection recently. I am now the proud owner of records that span from the late 60's to the late 80's; that's when we got our first CD player. I remember these albums growing up and they are very special to me. When I listen to them now they take me back to my childhood when Dad and (mostly) Mom would play them and it feels like I'm a little kid in the front room of the house again. I'm also introducing Quentin to a whole new generation of music as my family had done for me, so now my hope is that this music will hold a place for him as well.

Now on to more important issues! Talking to Dad the other night, I was sharing my joy at playing the records and how my TV watching has dropped since I stared spinning them; I still break for hockey though. I also told him that I wanted to buy more of them because there is just a different feeling when you play a record versus other forms of media. He sounded a little puzzled and said, "Why not just buy them on CD or via iTunes?" A valid question if you ask me, so I stated like any other vinyl snob that it sounded better on vinyl; Dad said he wasn't so sure about that. So I set out to test this theory and this morning I did! I donned my Sony headphones and found all of the CD's that I also have on record and lined them up. My control group was Billy Joel, The Clash, and The Beatles. A varied group and also varied ages for extra reliability in the results.

I started by playing one song on record and then again on CD but I only noticed minor differences. I then decided that I would cue them at the same time and switch back and forth to see if I notice the difference. This method worked the best and I can finally say that I have settled which is better. The answer is: they're the same. There are differences so minor that they should hardly even be talked about. The biggest thing is the volume; CD's tend to be a little bit louder. Other than that the most common thing was that CD's tend to have a little more of a "treble" sound while the records lean toward a more "bass" sound; this is the "warm" sound that vinyl affectionados point to.

In my opinion, however, I still prefer the record for listening and the CD for reliability. Why? Well the record doesn't bring on a feeling of ear fatigue. When music is recorded now, it is cranked up so high that our ears notice even if we don't initially; this is the biggest complaint of MP3's also. Records have a softer smoother sound, even with their hisses and pops. Records don't seem as distant as CD's, they seem to be closest to the real thing as you can get.

I'm no scientist of sound, but that is my very uneducated observation.

Why Is It

That I can roll around bed all night, never getting comfortable, never getting quality sleep, until the alarm is five minutes away from going off. Then, and only then, do I find comfort and peace...just in time to get up!

Frame of Mind

For random readers todays entry will make no sense. To the regulars, you'll figure it out pretty quick I'm sure. Also I'm going to throw out the warning that today's entry is pretty emotional and I will proceed to wash the sand out of my pants and get back to bitching about work as soon as I'm done typing. I have decided not to allow comments on this posting. These are my thoughts and comments will just accelerate arguments I wish to alleviate.

When someone meddles in others lives they may get a little upset, especially when it's uninvited. To then turn around and be shocked that you received some backlash is a very juvenile frame of thought. Maybe you should stand on your porch and look in your own front door before you look in someone else's window. Not once, unless I was asked, did I tell anyone how to live their life. I understand they may have been trying to stand up for someone, but they should also be open to both sides of the argument. I'm not free of blame, but I will not accept all of it either. This argument was not new, it just became a big deal when everyone else felt they had to be part of it.

Why do people feel as if they know your thoughts? Why are they so quick to pass judgment on you when all you were trying to do was be honest? I don't look at myself as a hurtful person and I find no joy in hurting people. I have tried to pretend to be an asshole in the past, but when I found people not liking me, I found it hurt more than I could stand. I want to be liked by everyone and if they don't I don't want the reason to be that I am a mean person. If someone wants my opinion, I will give them the truth and I will not just say what they want to hear. Everyone can rest assured that I don't pass judgment, I let people lead their lives and make their mistakes. I never blame people for their mistakes until they make them repeatedly. You have to learn something from them.

I made a mistake and from it I learned that there is no good day to break some bad news and even when it is unintentional, that same bad news can hurt someone. I am sorry that I hurt someone. But I will say it again, and for the last time, my intention was not to hurt, my intention was to be honest. I wish that they could stop for a second and look at it from my prospective. Should I have continue to hide how I truly feel or should I be honest so we can deal with the hurt and maybe salvage any possible friendship?If you feel that no friendship can be had, than please, feel free to move along with your lives and not make me feel bad and I will do the same for you. I have enough respect to grant you that much. I would hope they would have the same respect for me.

I like to think of myself as a good person and I like to think of myself as a good role model for my son. I have not and will not have screwing with peoples emotions as part of my enjoyment routine. I wish nothing but happiness for everyone, even those that have done me wrong. Life is too short to hold grudges, I am guilty of holding a couple though; it happens to the best of us. I want to be accepted and liked by all, but I will not compromise my integrity to gain that acceptance either.

One final note; this was not directed at anyone in particular, but instead it was directed at several of them. These are my final thoughts on what happened. I will only discuss what will happen in the future. If you would like to discuss the future, you know where to find me. I've never tried to hide.

A-Praise Adam!

I just received an e-mail from Boss-Number-One telling me that I have to fill out an Employee Self Appraisal. All I can say is, "What the hell is this shit?" How can you honestly ask the employee to rate the job s/he's done? If corporate reads these things do they really take them seriously? I think even a nun would make her self look like Employee of the Year on these things.

It comes complete with prefabricated questions to answer:

1. Briefly describe duties and responsibilities during the performance period. Include proposal and marketing efforts.

2. Describe significant accomplishments, achievements, and disappointments.

3. Describe views on development needs and goals for the upcoming performance period. Include work, education and training objectives.


It's like my theory on steroids in baseball. If everyone is juicing, you have essentially made everyone equal again, so there is no point. So with all of us bull shitting our way through these appraisals I'd like to think that maybe they can see what kind of people they have on their payroll, but I doubt it. I think when you make a certain salary you lose all touch with reality and common sense. You then start speaking in buzz words and find thing that you think are motivators, but really they just make you look stupid.

Work To My Advantage

If you are on my Gmail IM list you noticed that my status was "Loves Bad Reviews" you also know the reason, but for the other people, who aren't my mom, who read this allow me to tell you about my wonderful work place for a moment!

Last Friday the IT shop received our weekly reviews from the students and teachers. Normally we get a cheap shot or two because we couldn't recover data for someone who never bothered to save it in the first place or I didn't navigate away from the aforementioned Gmail IM to be at their desk as soon as they hung up the phone, it's never too big of a deal. This class however has the perception is that we don't do much and we have been verbally abused the last couple weeks.

Some of the reasons for this are that we are a small shop and we have to prioritize our tasks. The other guys do it based on severity of the problem and your position on the food chain. I prioritize based on how nice you are to me and if your a woman, that breaks down again as to how hot you are. We also have the ability to fix problems through something called Remote Desktop. This program allows me to log into any computer on our network with out leaving my cube! Lazy IT nerds created this program for other lazy IT nerds because they don't want to have to leave World of Warcraft for too long. I have no problem saying that I'm lazy and I also hate being lazy but I want to not be lazy on my own terms (playing golf, hockey, guitar, etc.).

So incredibly long story just a tad longer, the director bitched to the lead contractor, who bitched to the assistant lead contractor, who bitched to the IT manager, who bitched to us. See how unnecessarily long that chain is? The end result is that we have to make more of an effort to go out and help the masses face to face. I don't have too much problem with that, it just means more "BRB" on Gmail. The real kicker though is this: we have to turn in daily reports on what we did that day. This is absurd because we already have a web based trouble ticket system that a drunk monkey could figure out how to use (it uses small words). This system has all the required information that would be in this daily report that I now have to type. Information like, time, date, problem, etc. So now I'm duplicating what is already recorded. Did I lose you yet?

When I discussed this with CJ, via Gmail IM of course, I decided to make things up.

-IMing with friends would be Remote Office Communications Assistance
-Going to take a leak would be Server File Transfer
-Getting lunch is now Installing Virus Protection
-If I have a lunch that makes me constipated and I spend some time on the can it will be known as Mail Server Back Up. If it's a Mexican or Chinese food day it's, of course, a Complete Data Dump and System Recovery (hopefully I'll recover anyway).