Massive Attack-Teardrop

speaker This is an amazing song. The funny thing behind this song is I bought the album that this song is on, Mezzanine, after a friend recommended it. When I started to listen to this song I noticed it was very familiar. I’ll give you a hint, my favorite TV show uses it as it’s theme song. A little bit about Massive Attack from Wikipedia:

Massive Attack are a trip-hop band from Bristol, England. They have released four studio albums, two movie soundtracks, one remix album, and a greatest hits collection. Their musical style has been acclaimed for combining elements of jazz, hip hop, rock, and classical.

This song features Portishead, a great group also from England.

Changes to the English Language

Plural of moose is now meese. More than one fish means you have fishes. And one sheep, two shoop, three shoop, four.

That is all. Please spread the word.

EDIT: Urban Dictionary has shoop already (though definition 3 is contradicting the consensus of the #wordpress community) and also has the correct definition of meese.

On Computers

computer icon So, the cord on my AC adapter to my laptop became stripped and my laptop can’t run on AC power until I get the replacement. Of course, HP didn’t notify FedEx of the shipment in time to ship it out yesterday so it won’t ship until Monday and I won’t receive it until Tuesday. It’s a poorly designed cord if it became stripped this easily. I’ve had my laptop for about a year and a half and am not rough with the cord, so it shouldn’t be worn like it is. Also talking about poor designs, the CD drive is very poorly designed on this laptop (and many laptops I’ve seen). The bottom of the tray is part of the bottom of the laptop causing strain on it that shouldn’t be there when you hold the laptop on the left side. All laptop should have trays enclosed completely and not have part of the tray as part of the computer shell. My sister’s Toshiba and mom’s Gateway have the good kind of drive. Compaqs and HP’s don’t.

Also, my Dell is getting old. It’s about 5 years old now and is needing to be replaced. It has served me well and I’ve never had a problem with it, but with dual core processors and new operating systems using more ram and needing bigger and better video cards, it’s just time to buy a new system and not try to upgrade the existing PC. I’ve also been thinking of making the switch to a Mac. With Vista coming out, now is as good as time as any. Some of Vista’s features (from the little experience I have with it via my sister’s new laptop) are cool, but maybe it’s time to go another way. I won’t go Linux, so Mac is my other option really. Do I really want to pay twice he amount for a computer that has basically the same shelf life as a PC though? That is a decision I will have to make. And the Mac commercial where Mac and PC are talking and the security keeps saying “Cancel or Allow” is so funny because it’s true. Everything I was doing when helping my sister with her laptop was asking me to confirm. I’m sure it’s something you can turn off, I just found it funny.

So, now I wait for my AC adapter. Even with poor design, I love my laptop and hate not being able to use it much (if I hold the cord just right I can get power to it). Being stuck at my desk on the desktop sucks.

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The Story of American Beer

book icon For Christmas from my sister Lisa this year I received a great book entitled Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. It is a fantastic read. It gives great insight into the business economy in America starting in the mid 1800’s. Not only does it give the details of the biggest breweries in American history, but also insight into the people that made them the biggest. A-B, Pabst, and Schlitz would not have gotten as large as they did if it weren’t for their ambitious presidents, brew masters, and marketers. brew The book does not just focus on the big guys though, the last third of the book focuses on the micro-breweries that sprung up in the late 1970’s and 1980’s and discussed what made the succeed, fail, and pave the way for future micros. One of the most fascinating chapters is the chapter on Prohibition and how the brewers survived (selling soda pop, ice cream, and non-alcoholic “near beer” among other things). The book is a fascinating read if you have any interest in history, business, or just beer. I highly suggest you read this book. Now, I know what many of you are thinking, history books are boring. Not this one. The narrative is quick, concise, and entertaining. There isn’t anything boring about this book, it was perfect for a guy that lives in a beer town.

Tonedeff-Gathered

speaker I know I already have a song of the week this week, but I needed to post this song because of how much it means to me. Sometimes there is a song that you relate to so well. There is a song that you listen to whenever you feel a certain way. Music is very powerful. It pumps you up, chills you out, helps you when you’re sad, and makes you happy. It is wonderful. This song is a favorite of mine because not only does the singer Tonedeff do a great job singing, but also because the lyrics are so meaningful to me. You can read the lyrics to the song here. This really is an amazing song.

[audio:http://pieceofshep.com/audio/15-tonedeff-gathered.mp3]