Show me the tracks

Dear record labels,

Now that we live in the iPod generation, with everyone keeping their CD collection digitally on their MP3 player of choice, the days of hidden tracks at the end of CD's needs to stop! I have loaded my entire music library on my Philips 30GB MP3 player and recently have found 3 songs with terrible hidden tracks stuck on the ends of otherwise good songs. Sure I could just deal with it and skip to the next track, but I'm a perfectionist and it just bugs me. So instead I take the extra effort and crop the bad stuff out of the songs. Then there are those hidden tracks that I actually like, and those also need to be cropped out so I can listen to them easier. Please stop doing this and simply put the music on the disc as an actual track number. The first time I learned about the presence of a hidden track it was cool, but that was in the early 90's and now it's simply annoying!

The following are examples of good songs with complete junk hidden at end:

• Nirvana's "something in the way" from Nevermind

• Pearl Jam's "parting ways" from Binaural

• Bush's "distant voices" from Razorblade Suitcase

The following are examples of good songs with even better hidden tracks:

• Hootie's "go and tell him (soup song)" with hidden song "alright" from self titled album

• Gear Daddies' "one voice" with hidden song "zamboni" from Billy's Live Bait
  

Kirkland dish detergent is Bad

Kirkland detergent leaves white film
Originally uploaded by webdh.

Costco's Kirkland "environmentally friendly" dishwasher detergent has been awful as it leaves our dishes with a white film that must be scraped off. Sorry Earth, we're going back to Cascade!

The Fisherman and Businessman

The Pastor at my church told this great little story during a sermon a few weeks ago and she sent me a copy that I wanted to share with others. I'm not sure who the original author is, so I hope it's ok to publish it here on my blog. It goes like this...

A businessman visiting the pier of a small coastal village in Mexico noticed a small boat with just one fisherman pulling up to the dock. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The businessman complimented the fisherman on his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. "Only a little while," the fisherman responded.

"Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"
"I have enough to support my family's needs."

The businessman then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The fisherman replied, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends. I have a full and busy life."

The businessman scoffed, "I'm a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats and eventually have a whole fleet of boats. You would cut out the middleman and sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually to New York City, where you would run your expanding empire."

The fisherman asked, "But how long will all this take?"
The MBA replied, "Fifteen to twenty years."
"But then what," the fisherman asked.

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an initial public offering and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich; you would make millions."

"Millions?" the fisherman asked. "Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll into the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your friends."

Cool songs with whistling part

Here's a totally off topic blog post. I wanted to write down some song titles I like that have a distinct whistling part. There are probably many more I'll jot down as I rehear them, but this is my list to start:

1) Todd Snider - Sunshine
2) Norah Jones - Little Room
3) Guns N Roses- Patience

Let me know if you have any favorites that you'd include in this list.

Most Equitable Divorce Proposal

I received this via an email chain and hate forwarding them on. But this one is good so adding it to the blog, enjoy!

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.

We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in 1-5 years.

Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American

P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.

Mmmmm, homemade caramel rolls

Watch and learn how to make some delicious caramel rolls for your family. Some of my friends have wanted to know how I make these, so I taped myself making them, and posted a YouTube video. Ingredients include frozen sweet dough, brown sugar, heavy whipping cream, butter, and cinnamon sugar. Hope you enjoy them like we do!

Soul Asylum at First Ave

Soul Asylum at First Ave
Originally uploaded by webdh.

I saw a great performance of Soul Asylum live at First Avenue in Minneapolis on Dec 19, 2008. My friend Matt and I heard a bunch of our old favorite songs from college including Black Gold, Somebody to Shove, Runaway Train, Misery, and Without a Trace.

I also recorded two songs on my camera video mode:
Black Gold - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZLB1k_V9B4
Somebody to Shove - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DdWF_L0OFw

Wealth Redistribution in practice

I received this email today and just had to blog it. Here is a real world example of what Obama believes in, on a much larger scale of course by taxing the "rich".

> *Wealth Redistribution*
>
> Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read
> "Vote Obama, I need the money." I chuckled.
>
> Once in the restaurant my server had on an "Obama 08" tie, again I
> chuckled -- just imagine the coincidence.
>
> When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to
> him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept.
> I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone whom I
> deemed more in need -- the homeless guy outside. The server angrily
> stormed from my sight.
>
> I went outside, gave the homeless guy $5 and told him to thank the
> server inside as I've decided he (the homeless guy) needed the money
> more. The homeless guy was grateful.
>
> At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I
> realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn,
> but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did
> earn, even though the actual recipient needed the money more.
>
> I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in
> concept than in practical application.
>
> REDISTRIBUTION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S WEALTH, A GREAT IDEA ..............
> or just a fool's game?

Comcast's new 250 GB threshold

I just received the following email from Comcast, outlining their new max bandwidth usage of 250 GB per month. Seems good now, but will this cap become a burden as more HD content becomes available over the internet?

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.

On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.

In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.

In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use.

Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.

Hootie and Batman

Hootie - Hey Hey What Can I Do
Originally uploaded by webdh

I had a fun double feature last night. Saw Hootie & the Blowfish at the MN Zoo Amphitheater, then took off during the encore for Batman (The Dark Knight) at the IMAX theater, right next door. Both shows were a fantastic experience!

Heaven forbid

I guess it's not ok to post a tiny little video clip of a baseball game you record. Sure takes the fun out of seeing yourself on TV and wanting to show a few friends the short clip. It's not like I'm reposting the whole game and selling ads. For crying out loud MLB, don't you have better things to do like crack down on steriods? Here is the email I got from YouTube...

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by MLB Advanced Media claiming that this material is infringing:

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

Netflix reversed their decision on Profiles

Netflix reversed their decision on Profiles
Originally uploaded by webdh.

Hooray...the Netflix community spoke (rather shouted!) and they listened! Profiles are sticking around after all.

This email just arrived on 6/30/2008, and reads:

We Are Keeping Netflix Profiles
Dear Troy,

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.

We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.

-Your friends at Netflix

Why I Love Shutterfly

Ever since I got a digital camera years ago, I've been a member of Shutterfly. From the start, I liked their services best over Kodak, Snapfish, and similar sites. The primary reason initially was the 80 character text message you can put on the back of prints. They've continued to innovate ways to share photos with friends and family, with easy to create slideshows, collections, and now entire "Share" sites. With their excellent Web site, desktop software to edit and upload photos, and great variety of products and special offers, I'll continue to be a happy customer. Check out our new family share site I built in about 15 minutes.

Terrible News Regarding Netflix Profiles

Important News Regarding Netflix Profiles
Originally uploaded by webdh.

Here is the most ridiculous email I've ever received from Netflix. This has triggered a backlash of unhappy customers commenting in this blog post -- www.hackingnetflix.com/2008/06/netflix-elimina.html

-------------------------
Dear Troy,

We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008.

Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.

While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

If you have any questions, please go to www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.

- The Netflix Team