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We almost nailed the timing

On the subject of time, what part of day is this, even? I ask because it basically looked like this, a proper Bloomington winter day, all day. Just the faintest variations of this.

In the morning there was a fog advisory, which gave way to a gloomy bank of fog in the midday. In the afternoon the fog was relieved by a grim rain, which, in turn, yielded to a foggy devil-may-care mood. In the early evening it was an attitude of You’re still looking for a change?

And that was the day. It didn’t last forever, but it held a different sort of stasis. If you were romantic about it, you could say it had a certain mysteriousness. I wouldn’t say that. We’re entering mid-January, when a boy’s thoughts turn to mid-February, when he knows, in his heart, this should be ending and spring beginning. But, then, this is a proper Bloomington winter day. There’s 95 more days of this.

Back to the Re-Listening project, where we’re just moving through all of my old CDs in the car, because why not. Some of these come with memories and stories. These aren’t reviews, but whimsy, as most music should be.

I think this was another cassette-to-CD replacement, given where this lands in my CD books, when it was released and all of that. I have a vague memory of the cassette version, anyway. Anyway, Bush’s debut was 1994, this is about 1996 for me, and I didn’t come to it late.

But what I found on this listen is that post-grunge arrived at just the right time for me to find it interesting. Sometimes music is entirely about timing, is what the Re-Listening project teaches us. And this is a good example of that. This record saw three singles go into the charts, and it went platinum six times, but this week I’ve just been “Meh.” It feels a bit more hollow this time around.

Still like Alien, though. That’s a neat little sound.

We saw them one February when I was in college. I think I might still have the tour shirt. No Doubt, Goo Goo Dolls and Bush. No Doubt had just begun to enjoy that mainstream moment of introducing ~~most of~~ us to ska music and selling a lot of records. Goo Goo Dolls, having not yet discovered the secret to making money doing pop ballads, were still experimenting with their punk-grunge crossover and were pretty bad, actually. Then Gavin and Bush came out and played a lot of distortion and did rock ‘n’ roll things. It isn’t on that record, but they closed the show with their cover of “The One I Love.”

And, uhhhh, that’s not what that song is about.

More Bush later, maybe future records will appeal to me differently.

Which brings us to a single I don’t remember having ever owned. And I’m trying to make sense of this. It was August. I was alone at school, waiting on my roommate to come back. I’d probably just finished classes. (Made dean’s list that term as I recall.) I wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, which would be an easy way to explain this, but, I can’t explain it.

The video is well-lit, isn’t it? Bryan Adams took this 1980s pastiche to 24 on the Hot 100 and Mainstream Top 40. It peaked at sixth on the AC chart. Other than it is a two-song single, I don’t know why I would have picked this up. I guess we’ll have to invent a story.

Let’s invent a bad story. It was a late night at Wal-Mart and I was buying snacks and this was an impulse by to justify buying anything. And, also, they didn’t have the thing I actually wanted, but this song was OK, so why not. And maybe someone will like it — because when you’re that age that can sometimes matter.

That story probably has some truth to it.

This story is certain. I bought this single because the lyrics made a heavy reference to Birmingham, and that’s what one does some time. Also, the director of the video went the extra mile to make it seem real.

Did you see the Auburn bumper sticker? Did you catch Fob James on the front page of The Birmingham News? That’s Amanda Marshall’s most successful Canadian single. While it went to number three on the RPM chart there, it peaked at 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. (Canadians like us! And songs about moving on, second chances, and leaving guys like Virgil, who are just real gems, we’re all sure.)

I looked for that paper. There doesn’t seem to be an image capture of the front page. (Imagine the three paragraph aside I wrote about digitized newspaper archives and the search I undertook.)

I did find the two above-the-fold stories. The one on the left is headlined “Insurers’ legal luck may rise dramatically under lawsuit reform.”

Insurance companies that have been losers in the state’s courtrooms could reverse their misfortunes if lawmakers approve business-backed proposals aimed at overhauling Alabama’s civil justice system, legal scholars said.

The proposals, advanced by the Business Council of Alabama and passed last week by the state House of Representatives, would establish laws at least as harsh as the sweeping changes adopted in Illinois and Texas last year, legal experts in those states said.

While most debate in Alabama has focused on limiting punitive damage awards, the businessbacked proposals contain subtle wordings that would give companies _ especially insurers – a strong shield in the courtroom.

“These insurance ‘reforms’ are little more than a subsidy for the industry,” said Michael Rustad, a professor at Boston’s Suffolk University who has studied court verdicts from Alabama since 1985.

Jerry Underwood wrote that story. He stayed with The Birmingham news until 2012 or so. Then the business editor, he went into public relations, and is now writing in the blurry lines in between, best I can tell.

The lead story in that newspaper was about the governor. Fob James was wrapping up the first year of his second term.

With the nation’s capital in the clutches of political hard-liners, Alabama’s Gov. Fob James is, by contrast, generating less emotional heat.

The Republican governor, who on Tuesday completes the first year of his second term in the state’s highest office, is accessible – he’ll talk to almost anyone on his weekly call-in radio show.

And he’s seemingly mellowed since he last occupied the governor’s chair from 1979 to 1983. In December, for instance, he agreed with a caller to his show and overturned a ban on visits to members of prison chain gangs on Christmas.

Yep. Chain gangs. And that the prisoners that were one part chained work crews and, no kidding, one part tourist attraction, could now receive visitors on Christmas day was a sign of the governor going “mellow,” wrote Robin DeMonia, who is now doing strategic communication.

James also resisted federal funds for grade schools and gutted a lot of higher education. But he mellowed, see, because he dropped a costly and long running lawsuit.

Alabama has ended its fight against a college-desegregation lawsuit after spending 15 years and $25-million on it.

Gov. Fob James, Jr., last month withdrew his appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that required Alabama to enhance its two historically black public universities with new academic programs and bigger endowments.

The Governor, who called the ruling “out of sync with reality,” questioned whether Alabama A&M and Alabama State Universities were worth the extra money. But after critics blasted him for prolonging the suit, the Governor dropped the appeal.

The 1990s were a heck of a time in Alabama, basically.

I’m not sure what party James is in these days. He started out, as most people of his time and place, as a Democrat. He became a Republican and then a “born-again Democrat” when he ran for, and won, the governor’s office in 1978. Ever the opportunist, in 1994, he became a Republican once more and won the governor’s office again. These days he’s retired in Florida. A few years ago he sued one of his sons for fraud. But we’ve gotten way, waaay, off track here.

A guy named Jeth Weinrich directed that video, and I would like to compliment his choice, decades ago, of authenticity. The woman drives that car north, crosses into Tennessee and then, apparently, abandons the car in Seattle. I put this in a map, that’s one of the two ways you’d go on that 38-hour drive. But most of all, the Auburn bumper sticker was a nice touch. Good eye by the Canadians.

As for the rest of the record, there are other songs like “Let It Rain” and “Last Exit to Eden” which are overstrung power ballads. There are a couple, like “Fall From Grace” which always seemed destined for a rom-com.

And there’s this song that was surprisingly good, and still holds up well.

“Sitting On Top of the World” just missed its calling as a montage in that rom-com. I imagine something comical about painting or gardening and … maybe water skiing.

And when the too-cute couple finally get to smooching, this would be the song underneath.

I can only assume that this didn’t happen because no directors or music supervisors bought this record. And we are all the less for it.

Have you noticed the boots she’s wearing in that photoshoot yet? The 1990s were a heck of a time everywhere.

Amanda Marshall released two more studio albums after that, in 1999 and 2001. Each of them had hits in her native Canada. And then, somehow, she released three greatest hits records. There were some legal difficulties with her label, which might explain both the lack of output and mess of greatest hits. She’s been fairly private and quiet since.

But one final note. That newspaper that got us all distracted? It was published on Jan. 14, 1996. Twenty-seven years ago, Saturday. We almost nailed the timing.

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10
Jan 23

Gustard is for (mustard) lovers

Today seemed to last forever. I looked up, it was 11 a.m. I looked again, it was 1 p.m. The next time I glanced at the time it was 2 p.m. For the next 46 consecutive hours it was 2 p.m. Not sure how that happens. None of the rhythms or chores of the day were different than a normal day. Nothing to make it stretch or compress. It was just two. Two. Twoooooooooooooo.

Also, I had four hours of sleep last night. And change. Four hours and change. Really, though, when the hours of sleep starts with four, the extra minutes seem a trifling detail. There was a time, mind you, when I got by on much less. But I started making a conscientious effort to sleep more and now I can’t sleep less.

So it was that I came in this evening, sat down with a cat and dozed off. Only to be woken up when my lovely bride came through the front door. And I dozed off again. Only to be woken up when she came upstairs. And then I was awake, until it was time for dinner.

We had cheeseburgers this evening, which let me use, and use up, my first bottle of Gustard.

This was a Christmas gift a few years ago. My god-sisters-in-law (go with it) got it for me because we all like the band Guster, I’m impossible to shop for and some people like a challenge. It turns out Guster partnered with this company in Vermont and they makes a good mustard.

I don’t even like mustard. Or, I didn’t.

This year’s Christmas gift included more Gustard. Because we flew back from Christmas some of our presents were shipped after us. The box, including my new Gustard, arrived today. So, tonight, I could finish this bottle. Life has its grand moments of small serendipities of timing.

Or maybe it wasn’t timing. Maybe I just stayed in the period between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. for six weeks and the box had plenty of time to USPS its way here.

One of those is likely.

Probably the timely shipment of a parcel.

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9
Jan 23

The spring term begins, and here’s a lot of other stuff

A new semester began today. A new semester is underway. I am counting them on the access panel in my office. Each trident marks a semester. There’s a lot of memories and successful students in each. I wonder what sort of successes we’ll pack in the newest addition.

That’s a lot of semesters!

Had a nice bike ride on Saturday. One of our friends joined us on Zwift and that made us fast. Somehow I had 13 mile splits averaging 28+ mph. That’s just silly.

And while I was working hard trying to keep up, I had this idea …

Now I can capture videos of my virtual rides! Aren’t you thrilled?

Anyway, I got in 36 miles on Saturday. I didn’t ride yesterday, but I should have, so I did a quick 20 miles immediately after work, today.

More importantly, it is time for the most popular feature on the site. It’s time to check in with the kitties. (They had a busy day napping and cuddling yesterday, by the way.)

Here’s Phoebe, beating up one of her toys. Grab it in your front paws and kick it into submission by your back paws. Excellent strategy, for the most part. And it looks cute, but those little feet and claws will give you a beating!

It was a poor substitute for her favorite spring, which has been lost for a few days. I found it last night. She chased it around and under a chair. I rescued it for her. We started talking about mimicking it with other springs, maybe it has the right number of loops or something. While we wondering about that, she promptly lost it again. No idea where it is, as of this writing.

I know where it isn’t. Poseidon is, very helpfully, looking for it as well. He tells us it isn’t in the dryer.

Every day I open a thing — a closet, a cabinet, the refrigerator or some other appliance — and then close it. Then I open it and close it again, just to make sure that guy didn’t sneak in while I blinked.

It isn’t that I blink slow, but he moves fast.

I’m trying a new thing. I’m closing tabs. (I know! Crazy, right? Next you’ll find me cleaning out under sinks and vacuuming beneath bookcases … )

Anyway, there are a lot of tabs open in my browser(s). I bet you might have a similar problem. Some of them have been open for ages, and ages. Rather than lose them altogether, I am bookmarking some and closing them. (Novel!) And others should be shared, and then closed. So here we are. Today’s contenders.

The Deep Sea Is Filled with Treasure, but It Comes at a Price:

“We believe we see the world as it is,” she writes. “We don’t. We see the world as we need to see it to make our existence possible.”

The same goes for fish. Only the top layers of the oceans are illuminated. The “sunlight zone” extends down about seven hundred feet, the “twilight zone” down another twenty-six hundred feet. Below that — in the “midnight zone,” the “abyssal zone,” and the “hadal zone” — there’s only blackness, and the light created by life itself. In this vast darkness, so many species have mastered the art of bioluminescence that Widder estimates they constitute a “majority of the creatures on the planet.” The first time she descended into the deep in an armored diving suit called a wasp, she was overwhelmed by the display. “This was a light extravaganza unlike anything I could have imagined,” she writes. “Afterwards, when asked to describe what I had seen, I blurted, ‘It’s like the Fourth of July down there!'”

Bioluminescent creatures produce light via chemical reaction. They synthesize luciferins, compounds that, in the presence of certain enzymes, known as luciferases, oxidize and give off photons. The trick is useful enough that bioluminescence has evolved independently some fifty times. Eyes, too, have evolved independently about fifty times, in creatures as diverse as flies, flatworms, and frogs. But, Widder points out, “there is one remarkable distinction.” All animals’ eyes employ the same basic strategy to convert light to sensation, using proteins called opsins. In the case of bioluminescence, different groups of organisms produce very different luciferins, meaning that each has invented its own way to shine.

[…]

Scales, like Widder, worries that the bottom of the ocean will be wrecked before many of the most marvelous creatures living there are even identified. “The frontier story has always been one of destruction and loss,” she writes. “It is naïve to assume that the process would play out any differently in the deep.” Indeed, she argues, the depths are particularly ill-suited to disturbance because, owing to a scarcity of food, creatures tend to grow and reproduce extremely slowly. “Vital habitat is created by corals and sponges that live for millennia,” she writes.

And if we’re going to learn anything — we’re not, but if we were gonna — it ought to be that there’s an interconnectedness to all of this that is fragile, and important. Even among all of those different zones.

6 Ways to Keep Your Gmail Storage Free and Under 15GB:

Unlike some services (looking at you, iCloud), Gmail is pretty lenient with its free tier. You get 15GB of storage between Gmail and Google Drive, and for many people, it’s good enough. But a lot of people have been using Gmail for a decade or more now, and it’s not hard to accumulate 15GB of data over that kind of timespan.

Once you do hit the 15GB cap, you won’t be able to add files to Google Drive, and eventually, emails won’t hit your Gmail inbox. If you’ve been finding it harder and harder to avoid paying Google for more storage, here are some of the best ways to quickly free up space.

It is a slide show, but it is one of the more useful slideshows, if you’re in a space saving mode.

There. One of my phone browsers is now down to 43 tabs. It is good to make progress.

And we continue making progress in the Re-Listening project. I’m playing all of my CDs in my car. In order, that is. Not all at once. That’d be … noisy.

But some of it would sound good! That’s why I’m listening to them individually and, here, I’m just writing a few notes. These aren’t reviews, but just for fun and filler, he said 1,075 words into this post. Anyway, this installment is a greatest hits, and it seems weird, somehow, to go on and on about a record that was full of charting hits.

So let’s get to it quickly, then. Greatest Hits and their massive success aside, some of these Tears for Fears tracks were juuuuust a tiny bit before my time, initially. Oh, the big ones I know well, and you do too! But there was a sense of achievement in discovering new-to-me and thoughtful and quality Tears for Fears songs. “Woman in Chains” peaked at 36 on the Billboard Hot 100. Lovely song.

“Mad World” was not a hit in the 1980s, which was why I listened to it for the first time in 1996-or-so, but it did get some spins in 2004, reaching number 30 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and topped the Adult Alternative Songs chart. Then it landed in a video game commercial, was the subject of a few successful covers and appeared on a game show. It’s become something of a standard filler, I guess?

“Laid So Low” was the single off the actual greatest hits. And, sure, it was released in 1992, but this is quintessential 1980s. It was a top 20 Euro hit, settled in the top 40 in Canada and elsewhere. The song was a top 20 hit in the UK, France, Italy and Poland; a top 40 hit in Canada, Germany and the Netherlands; and reached the top 10 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Curt Smith wasn’t in the band at the time, so that song was a Roland Orzabal special. He kept the band name active during the rest of the 1990s, but 30 million unit sales means you get back together, eventually. After nine years of silence, they started talking, playing and writing together again.

“The Tipping Point” was a project that took seven years to produce, but it came out to good reviews in 2001 and made the top 10 in a lot of national charts, including the U.S. It also hit number one on the US Billboard’s Top Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Album Sales charts.

Not bad for two guys climbing into their 60s, he said, hopefully, from halfway through his 40s.

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4
Jan 23

That’s embarrassing

It is remarkable to me how light things get when it is time to go back to work. It seems having a normal schedule prevents me from finding and doing fun things to tell you about here. The nerve of the real world, no?

So this is my day, today, be it ever so humble.

I did 16 miles in about 45 minutes and then quit. Everything was wrong. It was just immediately fast and hard and not at all what I was hoping for, which was a ride that would have lasted about twice as long. Instead, I had a bit of mild-to-medium nausea, there was no more energy, and I was threatening to overheat.

I bonked. Bonked like a rookie who knows nothing about nutrition, and did it in under an hour. Very weird. But, I guess, lunch had been some time back and maybe there hadn’t been enough carbs. There certainly wasn’t enough glycogen.

I felt a bit better after dinner, at least. But by then I was just … tired. So the rest of this isn’t terribly substantial, sorry.

But, hey, I set five PRs on Strava segments. And I finished 8th out of 460 on one of the sprints. I did the math and I managed to hold 30 mph through that segment with no virtual draft, or even a real awareness that I was about to enter a sprint. (Also, I am in no way a sprinter. Or anything else, really.)

Here’s a quick update to the Re-Listening project. I know, I just put two pieces in this same space yesterday. But those were to get caught up from before the holidays. Since I drove to two places in town yesterday to run errands I spent more time in the car. It’s an odd thing about temporal mechanics around here, but it takes 27 minutes to drive nine miles. Between that and waiting in line at the car wash, I managed to listen all the way through another CD.

I actually skipped one CD yesterday, because life is too short to listen to awful music. A record promoter gave me this disc, and I couldn’t get out of it. I should have tried harder, I know. I knew it then, too, when he compared the lead singer to “an off-key Kurt Cobain.” This was, mind you, a silly one-off conversation 26 years ago and I remember that comment. How out of place. How weird. How wrong. But at least the guy got to drop a name, I guess.

Anyway, the guy singing on that CD wasn’t Kurt Cobain, but closer to Chris Cornell. He didn’t have all of the tricks, and he sounds simultaneously bored and impressed with himself. The guitarist is noodling around, seemingly aware of the limitations by his chord structure or what he had to play around, gamely looking for something new and different. But there’s not much variation, and life is too short for awful music.

I wanted, here, to do the thing where I look all of those guys up and say they all went on to be successful restauranteur, fire fighters or boat charter captains. All four guys have incredibly common names, though. So one of them could be a judge. Another might be an auctioneer. One is probably just really good at D&D. The guy that did the cover photos has had a good run as a photojournalist. Seems to be in Florida now.

Anyway, after that came my 1996 cassettee-to-CD upgrade for the Hootie and the Blowfish debut. Probably you’ve heard of it. It finished seventh on Billboard’s 1990s pop list. Only Alanis Morissette, Whitney Houston, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, the Titanic soundtrack and Celine Dion, respectively, fared better. They won a Grammy and were certified platinum 21 times in the United States. So, yeah, I needed to get an updated copy, I guess. Because you never heard this stuff on the radio.

(Aside: Lilly Haydn was, is, and likely always will be, incredible.)

Anyway, I really dug the band (last August their second album, Fairweather Johnson appeared on the Re-Listening project)
and I still do. Something about the Carolina yelling appeals to me.

Oh, there was a 25th anniversary edition released in 2019? Guess I should pick up a copy of that.

But, first, I’m going to sleep off the bleh feeling.

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3
Jan 23

Don’t move anything: all the regular site elements are caught up

Today? Oh, back to the regular. I actually went to work. Did a few work things, saw some people. Thought I should start a list: People I’ve Asked About The Holidays. Over the next seven or eight days I will, no doubt, ask someone that same question twice. Three times if they are really unlucky.

I’d also like to develop an app for the phone that listens to all of my jokes and notes the phones around at the time. Then, the next time I start wind up for that same joke, it buzzes most annoyingly if it notes the same people around. We’ll name it Asa. Avoiding Social Awkwardness.

I even whipped up the logo.

It symbolizes the circular nature of one’s jokes, you see.

Because we tell our best material over and over.

Now, to just program the thing, and get around all of the many and considerable privacy issues with anonymity decryption protocols.

See, I’ve thought of everything. Except that I know not how to build it.

After work I went to the auto parts store. It is a building where they have parts. They are, generally, parts for your car. The interior of the store is helpfully organized in zones. And I went to the zone of the auto parts store that holds the light bulbs. Turns out the oil change guy last month was partly right. He said my blinker was out. My blinker is fine. My marker light, a term I learned only this afternoon, was the one that was out. The market light is the one behind the yellow lens. I thought that was the fog light, but, no, that’s different.

There are two light bulbs that seem similar to the busted marker light bulb I pulled out in the parking lot. And a guy that works in the point of sale zone of the store helped me find the right one. Online indices are wonderful things.

While he was doing that, though, someone walked out with a battery. Just carried it right out of the store. He’d been talking about it with them. made eye contact at the door, got into his truck and drove off. We all watched him leave the parking lot. The three guys working just shrugged.

I purchased my two marker light bulbs, walked outside, installed one in the socket, successfully tested the replacement and drove to the car wash.

My car needed it, but you don’t need 400 words on three days of dry weather, the long line at “Wash World” and those wonderful sounds the drive through wash makes as the machinery works its way around. Well, anyway, my car is cleaner, but my windshield was, for some reason, blurry after that.

You just can’t get good robotic help these days.

Let’s get back to the Re-Listening project — the one where I’m playing all of my old CDs, in the order I acquired them, and write about them here. These aren’t reviews, as such. Just memories and a fun excuse to put up too many videos. It’s a whimsy, as most music should be.

These, by the way, were things that got played just before the holiday break. I am, as ever, in arrears.

And first up is a maxi-single. What’s a maxi-single? So glad you asked. A maxi-single is a release with more than the usual two tracks of an A-side song and a B-side song. This is a Rusted Root maxi-single, and it has five tracks. I am sure this was a college station radio giveaway. Also, it is still good.

The title track is up first, a Santana cover that does the original a bit of justic.

And before you wonder, Rusted Root produced seven studio albums and a live record between 1992 and 2012. Four of them landed on the Billboard 200, and two of those in the top half of the chart. One is certified gold, the other is platinum. They’re not hardly a flash in the pan.

Rusted Root is one of those bands that have a lot of musicians come through the band over the years. And, I must confess, I am not always clear on who is where. But let me just say this. There are some talented front porch pickers playing on this thing, and that’s about as high a compliment I will offer a musician not paid to play orchestral music in formal wear.

Three of the songs on the maxi-single are live, including the one that was the point, one of the ones you definitely remember, and the one that still shows up in commercials and TV shows from time-to-time.

The band itself seems to be done, or on hiatus, but many of the former members are stilly playing music. (A lot of them have been in Hot Tuna, turns out.) The lead singer is still making music, and others, including the most prominent female vocalist and the original drummer, are dividing their time between their own music and things like teaching and entrepreneurial projects.

I was hoping one of them might be a software developer, someone that could help me with the Asa project.

The next CD is from Big Mountain, another freebie I picked up because, if you were a kid of a certain era you were issued at least one post-Marley reggae album as a matter of procedure.

And, honestly, unless you line things up just right, a little reggae goes a long way for me. I appreciate some of the historical elements of the form, and my lay ear respects the musicianship, and they’re still at it, but it isn’t mine.

Which is maybe why I have no real fixed memories of this CD in particular.

This is one of the later tracks on the record, and it’s a TV studio performance. This 1995 song is still topical, of course.

The previous year they’d released their cover of “Baby I Love Your Way,” which peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. That was their biggest pop moment. This record, “Resistance” didn’t follow up with commercial success, but they did release three singles from this one, and recorded seven albums since then. They finished last year playing in India. They’ll be touring locally in California early this spring, their 34th year of making music.

I finished Rick Atkinson’s The British Are Coming tonight. I was wrong, where he leaves us. The book ends after the Battle of Princeton, and the maneuvering immediately after. These were the circumstances that set up the Forage War in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I wonder if that’ll appear in the next book of the trilogy. As I said yesterday, this is Tolstoy meets Burns, the two-time Pulitzer winner embracing completely the role as a popular historian.

And he’s got seven more years of the story to tell. The epilogue covered John the Painter, so, I assume, it’s going to get grim in a hurry, when the new installment is published.

The next line of his acknowledgements, which runs several pages after 564 pages of maps and another hundred-and-change of notes, thanks Queen Elizabeth II, but there’s nothing here telling me when the next book is coming out.

Maybe in 2024, just in time for my fake phone app, then.