fine whine

Here's an interesting site: A comprehensive guide to samples and references in Paul's Boutique. Comprehensive it is, but only for that one album. I envision a site encompassing all music but covering it in just as much detail. Wouldn't that be really cool?

This is no simple idea, though — I've put a little thought into this. It would be called Sample Hunter and its logo would be recognizably similar to Steve Irwin's but not enough to be illegal or un-hip. Users would not just suggest samples, they'd put bounties on them. Each bounty would be worth more sample requests, and some samples would be worth more than others. A couple spoken words in the background of a Beck deep cut would fetch a higher bounty than, say, the backing track to "Ice ice baby" (David Bowie and Queen, "Under pressure", I know). Redeeming bounties would allow the hunter to place new bounties and enjoy other privileges I have yet to determine.

Would such an idea work? I know I'd lurk it definitely and maybe even fill in some samples. Just an idea, though. I don't have the web space to actually implement anything. Yet.

On and off I have fancied myself to be a writer. Over the years I've written a couple stories, but rarely without prompting of some sort or another. Deadlines and assignments provided rudimentary inspiration, but lacking those I found only a dearth of creative ideas. But then just yesterday one struck me, and I'd like to flesh it out. It would be a short story, and I'd carefully craft it to age well at least for the next ten years or so.

That wouldn't be much of a challenge except for the fact that it's about a guy (or gal, it could go either way really) whose frustration with an apparent inability to get a tech job leads inadvertently turns him into a cobbler. That is, a mender of shoes and boots.

It would be an amusing story. The premise is lightly humorous, ironic that the guy (or gal, of course) searching for a "position utilizing technical expertise" ends up doing low-tech but highly-skilled labor. More humor appears more directly in the form of asinine if not outrageous questions asked at one interview. Questions that have nothing to do with technical acumen and everything with, well, something, perhaps. Zen koan-like, but with a demented slant. Like, "If you and your extended family were stranded in a mountain pass by an airplane accident, who would be eaten first and how would it be organized?" or even "Which color crayon does a polar bear draw with?" After one such interview, protagonist would be walking back in the rain (ooh, how clich�d!) and have a sole or heel fall off one shoe, causing dampness and much consternation.

A well-placed significant other or good pal would happen across our protagonist nailing the errant piece back on and then putting the shoe back on, satisfied with a repair well done. Said significant other or pal would then pass this on as an anecdote, and virally it would spread until our surprised protagonist is swamped with FoaF (friend of a friend) shoes needed work. Unwilling to be compensated at first, the protagonist eventually realizes that a comfortable living can be made in a major urban area repairing the shoes of people with lots of disposable income.

And all the while a solitary computer gathers dust in the corner.

But I don't really feel like writing such a story right now. Let me know if you do, I guess.

Were you aware that "trend" could be used as a verb? It can! So it's possible to have a trend that doesn't in fact trend in a somewhat ironic sense. Like the pet rock after the first couple months.

Anyway, it struck me that, given the recent success of the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean movie, nautical terminology will soon be hip additions to common vocabulary. Let's say a guy and a girl go on a date. He gets directions to her house ("Turn port at the third stop sign, then at Anystreet make a turn starboard") and soon the two of them are "underway" to the restaurant, which is known for the particularly good "mess" in its "galley" (i.e. no "seabiscuits"). They converse, and after dinner she entertains thoughts of being "First Mate" to him as "Master". As she slips out to powder her nose in the "head" he wonders too if they might "come alongside" each other. She gets back to the table with her panties in her purse and a "come aboard" look in her eyes...

And so forth? Naah. I don't think it could ever catch on because too many people would giggle at calling the restroom a "head". And who can tell left from right, let alone "port" from "starboard"?

So I had this brilliant idea for how I could solve not one, but two problems that aren't important issues at all. First of all, I like to listen to music at work, but my computer's CD drive clicks and makes a lot of noise. So listening to my CDs and mp3CDs is right out. I tried out internet radio, settled on a playlist of about ten shoutcast streams, and still wasn't happy. I was spending too much time switching channels, as it were. That's "problem" number one. "Problem" number two—warranting quotes because neither is life-threatening—is a backlog of music I haven't heard, primarily in mp3 form. Can you believe that it took me a week to realize the solution?

I made a private shoutcast server. I culled some other tools, namely Oddcast, and mistakenly set the bitrate to 160kbps. Which is very close to CD quality, but also huge. Each song necessitates streaming around five megabytes, so you can imagine the stats I'd be running up for downloads. I want to get the attention of the I.T. department, but not that way. Oh, and the bitrate's too high—it skips.

Someday I think I want a sign atop my bed that says "Mike Lietz slept here". I think that would be cool, in some over-the-top wacky, zany way. I'm of course inspired by a scene in The Emperor's New Clothes, a little film starring Ian Holm, Iben Hjejle (seen earlier in High Fidelity and equally good here), and Ian Holm. To give away no more than the DVD case, Ian plays Napoleon and a suitable duplicate, joined in a daring escape from his island exile. Once off the island, the little emperor journeys back to Paris by way of Waterloo, stopping to take a nap in a tourist trap house honoring him, despite his never being there. He awakens to see a sign above the headboard proclaiming "Emperor Napoleon Slept Here" and realizes that it is now true. A mere throwaway moment in an otherwise more serious film, it inspired me to have a sign of my own. I'm not going to buy the DVD of the movie, though, since it lacks any sort of extras at all, and I'd really like to have heard some filmmakers' commentary on this one. It was a good movie, full of whimsy and wonder and other things that start with 'w'. Well worth watching.

Not that I know anything about dry ice or fog machines, but an idea occurred to me and I think it's pretty cool. What if cars were equipped not only with air conditioning but a hopped-up fog generator, such that the whole cabin would be cooled and the floor to about knee level would be fog? I assume that, given condensation and density, etc, fake fog is cooler than regular air, and would thus create a comfortable environment. Also, what would be niftier than opening up the door after a long drive and having the fog lazily gush out onto the pavement?

And in other news, in some form of guerilla action at work, today I printed off a bootleg barcode to replace one that was unreadable, which the powers that be had difficulty replacing. What would that be considered, sabotage or thinking-out-of-the-box? Or something in between? I'm guessing it probably went against some policy or other.

Also, NPR did a story this morning about Desert Combat (previously mentioned mod for Battlefield 1942). A week ago I'd never of it, and now NPR even talks about the game. Go figure.