June 2009 Archives

As I sit here listening to Sunlounger’s “Sunny Tales”, I can’t help but think how music takes me back to memories or events in my life. Being one of the more recent ones, whenever I hear Sunlounger, my thoughts automatically go back to last year, sitting on the Metro and heading into DC almost on a weekly basis to catch shows at Ibiza for Armin, Guetta, Kaskade, and many others. I would just chill to the music for the 30 minutes I was on the Metro.

But Sunlounger is simply one of the more recent music memories. My life seems to be defined by the music I listen to and what stage of my life I am in at the time. Finley Quaye’s “Dice” reminds me of nights back at home, Fragma’s “Toca’s Miracle” takes me back to 2002 and when I first started working at Saks, whereas Eve 6’s “Inside Out” takes me to when I worked a part time job at a furniture store in 1998.

I was reminded again last week how music can bring up memories you thought were lost when I heard Dr Alban’s “It’s My Life” on the radio, and upon getting home and grabbing a couple Dr Alban songs, hearing a 3 second clip from a Scatman John song. These took me back to when I lived in the 1990’s techno heavy Dominican Republic.

I have found that I can place the years, and even months, of events in my life based off the music of the time, whether it is an artist, a single song, or an entire genre.

Nada Surf, Butthole Surfers, Silverchair, and Superdrag take me to one period. Bone Thugs-in-Harmony, Domino, Dr Dre, and Snoop take me to another; while Metallica, Guns-n-Roses, and Pearl Jam take me to a whole other time and place.

Although work or school may be the places where memory retention is most important, most of that knowledge is easily forgotten, but it is always amazing to see how a song that you may have not heard in 10+ years brings back instant memories of the past (both good and bad).

Original Article

The ASUS EEEPC 1000HE secured the top spot as our readers’ favorite netbook, building on the reputation of the EEEPC line as a very capable netbook and cinching the deal with one of the longest running batteries in its class.

The ASUS may have won by a lot, but my MSI Wind is no slouch and came in second. Take that Dell!

Original Article

Super old article (2003/07/10), but I can’t believe I missed it.

3) You enjoy the content fire hose. Give me tabbed browsing, tabbed instant messaging, music all the time, and TIVO TIVO TIVO. Welcome to NADD.

I certainly have N.A.D.D. when read from this “definition.” With me, replace “TIVO TIVO TIVO” with “Usenet/Streaming/EyeTV”.

Although I have thought for awhile this is becoming all more common, I am finding it is much less so than I had imagined. Other than faceless internet “contacts” (and my brother and brother-in-law), I don’t have any RL friends I would classify as having N.A.D.D.

The presence of NADD in your friends is equally detectable. Here’s a simple test. Ask to sit down at THEIR computer and start mucking with stuff on their desktop. Move an icon here… adjust a window size there. If your friend calmly watches as you tinker away, they’re probably NADD-free, for now. However, if your friend is anxiously rubbing their forehead and/or climbing out of their skin when you move that icon 12 PIXELS TO THE RIGHT, there’s NADD in the house. BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER.

This is where I was truly nailed down. I know, it sounds a little OCD, and it is, but please don’t resize my windows, don’t move things around, and don’t put anything on my desktop. My desktop is void of any icons with the occasional exception of being a temp/staging area for current, at-the-moment work.