Archive for the 'Updates' Category

Listening to a bootleg of a concert I’ve attended

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

I was using SeeqPod the other day to search for non-album songs sung by Over The Rhine. (By the way, Over The Rhine is coming to Indianapolis on December 12th at the Music Mill. I wonder if it will contain some Christmas music. I’ve never been to one of their Christmas concerts.)
Many of the mp3s [...]

Selling weed: It’s all about the babes and the steak

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

Maybe it is time to move to somewhere else. Below is virtually verbatim of one side of a conversation heard outside my (closed) window not too long ago:
Hey kid! I want to tell you somethin’.
You won’t have to work for no one! You know what I’m sayin’. You know what I’m sayin’. You know man. [...]

Is it the music we value: thoughts on popular music

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

As most of you all know, I tend to prefer extremes in taste. After a fling with orthodox liturgy, Old-Slavic hymns, and requiems, I threw myself into pop music from the last twenty years. I became excited at listening to songs from a decade ago. These are songs that I did not hear often, since [...]

August update for the Jameses

Saturday, August 25th, 2007

Rachel and I are currently listening to the “The Age of Henry VIII” from Great Courses. Rachel just finished coaching her second varsity soccer game. We are traveling to the Lexington area sometime in the upcoming weeks.
I have added a “Now Reading” plug-in from Roblog to Cultured Media: More than a sound byte. I’m almost [...]

New car and a pleasant visit to the BMV

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

Are you probably already read on Facebook, I brought a 2000 Honda Civic on Tuesday. I brought the Civic for close to the average price in area minus the cost of half an exhaust system and new brakes–which the seller and I both agreed would the car would need in the coming months. It’s dark [...]

SMJdesign network feed up and running!

Monday, June 11th, 2007

I am making my blogs into networks that read each others posts which means the blogs are co-dependent and thus could cause each other to fault. I have been able to create a master feed of all my blogs at SMJdesign.com/feed/ If you are currently subscribing to Rachel and Stephen, and would like to subscribe [...]

Since when did a debate become a boxing match? (This American Life)

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

Since when did a debate become a boxing match? Four years into the Iraq War, what have we learned? Soldiers, civilians, Iraqis, and Americans talk–and sometimes yell–about what they’ve learned in the last few years.
#333: The Center for Lessons Learned (1:15:27)
About halfway through is a “debate” between Saun Hannity and Rocky Anderson, Mayor of Salt [...]

“I wear lace, I wear black leather, my hands are lightning. . .”

Saturday, May 19th, 2007

An entertaining conversation with Ghoul Rocker, Alice Cooper on Fresh Air.
A humorous note about Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air, “…Because of her short haircut and the number of guests from arts and entertainment (some of whom are gay), Gross said in her autobiography that she is sometimes asked whether she is gay or [...]

I’d rather do a funeral than a wedding

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

If only people spent as much time considering who they are marrying as they do choosing the hors-d’oeuvre at the reception, maybe more marriages would be successful.
In Rebecca Mead’s book, The Perfect Day, Mead focuses on the consumerism that has taken over the American wedding. She says that one clergy she interviewed said that [...]

National Vocabulary Championship: Win With Words

Friday, May 11th, 2007

The Game Show Network has launched The National Vocabulary Championship with a $40,000 grand prize. The contest measures word usage and comprehension. It’s like “American Idol, a spelling bee, and Jeopardy all rolled into one,” Martha Barnette, A Way With Words.


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