occasionally creative
May 24, 2012 Leave a Comment
I’m an hour from my house. I have to be back approximately where I am in three hours, so there’s no point in going home and returning later. Fortunately I made a plan beforehand: I found a nearby restaurant with free Wi-Fi — okay, it’s a McDonald’s — in which I can write my weekly column on an otherwise crazy busy weekend.
Only I seem to have forgotten my laptop.
Read the full article at The Hippo.
May 23, 2012 Leave a Comment
A bunch of articles I wrote got published pretty much simultaneously this week. Hope you like apps, because they’re coming at you fast and furious.
I mean it.
May 21, 2012 Leave a Comment
Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to all four Starsailor albums in my car. Two of them feature “bonus tracks,” songs not included on the original release for some reason or another. They’re good tunes, but you can tell when they come on; the album wraps up nicely and then there’s a random song or two stuck on the end. (I’m just now noticing that they all happen to be in 6/8 meter as well. Weird.)
It might be that extra songs are included when an album is released in another country; it’s particularly common in Japan. Sometimes certain retailers make deals with distributors so that bonus tracks are only available on CDs in their stores.
I’m a big proponent of the album as a cohesive whole, more than the sum of its component songs. On one hand, bonus tracks mess up album integrity and make it difficult to own an authoritative collection of music. When a sequence of songs is planned out, it’s not random, or at least it shouldn’t be. The tone and content of the last song bring the story or theme to a close, and bonus tracks slapped on the end disrupt that feeling of resolution.
My frustration increases when Amazon lists and sells a bonus track as part of Muse’s Absolution MP3 album, even though it’s not on the American CD release. Then again, the band’s own discography lists “Fury” as the last track, which screws up my old Simulacrum album project, which is supposed to be all about songs not on the primary versions of studio albums.
But do I buy albums with bonus tracks? Of course. I don’t want to get ripped off. So obviously I’m part of the problem.
May 17, 2012 1 Comment
Ads are part of the deal whenever we get something for free, whether it’s a television show, an article on the Web, a downloaded app, or even this very paper. Even things we pay for — cable TV, daily newspapers — use advertising to defray the costs that subscribers could never hope to cover.
But what exactly is the deal?
Read the rest of this week’s column at The Hippo.
I really do want your thoughts on this topic. Comment here or tweet @CitizenjaQ.
May 15, 2012 Leave a Comment
Yesterday I snagged a good deal in the Electronics section of Craigslist. Ten minutes after the item was listed, I e-mailed the seller and made clear I could buy it and pick it up within hours.
Yes, I did everything right. It was the seller who did everything wrong.
By “wrong” I really mean “unsafely.” The deal went down without a hitch, but as often happens, the seller sacrificed some prudent precautions for expediency and convenience.
First, the seller replied to my inquiry by immediately providing her address, driving directions to her house, and two phone numbers. A cell phone conversation is sometimes the best way to arrange a transaction, but going to a neutral, public location is far better than inviting an Internet stranger to your home.
When we talked on the phone, she said she’d leave the item on the porch – presumably so I’d know I was at the right house? Sure enough, there it sat when I pulled up at the prearranged time, just waiting for me to skip out on payment and grab it.
But I am a man of honor, so I rang the doorbell and waited until the woman, apparently home alone, answered the door. She wore only one shoe, her left foot encased instead in a cast. Definitely not the state in which anyone should invite a stranger home.
Her one smart move? Leaving her dog outside. Her big, friendly, licky dog. Which she apologized for.
Craigslist has its own list of common sense precautions its users should take, as do many other sites. It’s good advice.