In the fat part of the curve

So, I thought I was having a big revelation, all by myself, when I discovered the pleasures of Random Shuffle on my iPod. How silly of me to think my experience is unique.

Wired pops my bubble:

Napster revolutionized music distribution, but massive libraries of digital music and capacious players like the iPod are upending listening habits through something very simple but profound: random shuffle.

When music lovers first discover the iPod, or software like Winamp or iTunes, they often rhapsodize about the joys of randomly shuffling tracks.
"I have seen the future, and it is called Shuffle," writes Alex Ross, the New Yorker's music critic, who seems to have recently acquired an iPod.

Stuffy old listening habits -- like listening to albums from beginning to end -- are being thrown out in favor of allowing machines to choose songs at random, which often leads to unexpected, and magical, juxtapositions of music.

Then, this guy comes along to kick me when I'm down:

James Kellaris, a professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati and author of a study about tunes that stick in your head, said the appeal of random shuffle is likely generational.

Kellaris said random shuffle likely appeals to the MTV generation -- kids with short attention spans who are likely "brain damaged."

Oh great. Like I needed to hear that the same week I hear this:

People who drink the equivalent of three large glasses of wine a night can suffer brain damage similar to that seen in chronic alcoholics, research suggests.

Scientists found that people who consumed more than 100 drinks a month — around 130 units — suffered from loss of memory, reduced intelligence, poor balance and impaired mental agility.

While not getting too personal, let's just say I'm within striking distance of that 100/month.

Wax on

I am a MASTER of the English language!

While my English is not exactly perfect,
I am still more grammatically correct than
just about every American. Still, there is
always room for improvement...

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

That'd be a lot more meaningful if you couldn't get the "master" rating by simply choosing the first option for each question: as I did while trying to get to the results page while attempting to fix the picture (which wouldn't let me link directly, for some reason).

Favorite word

Merriam-Webster Online wants to know your favorite word.

Mine was "sylvan", because I think it's fun to say.

Nuts

defective yeti shows us a strange picture. I won't spoil the fun by discussing it further.

Smooth Music

"The Makers of Smooth Music" is a compliation CD of songs recorded in the 60's and 70's by companies who, for a fee, put your lyrics (no matter how awful) to music, with a live band!

I'll transcribe the lyrics to a few of these songs here, for your amusement.

Richard Nixon

God, in his infinite wisdom
Put Richard Nixon on this earth
To bring to us his heritage
One of priceless worth

A courageous leader
And a blessed man
Surely in God's plan

His heritage is from Heaven
And the magic from above
The rapture of music and melody
Of culture and of love

Yes, God, in his infinite wisdom
Put Richard Nixon on this earth
To bring to us his heritage
One of priceless worth

A leader with endless courage
A miracle you might say
And all who have met Nixon love him so
The genius of his way

God, in his infinite wisdom
Put Richard Nixon on this earth
To bring to us his heritage
One of priceless worth

Jimmy Carter

Can our government
Be competent
Jimmy Carter says Yes
Jimmy Carter says Yes

Can our government
Be honest
Jimmy Carter says Yes
Jimmy Carter says Yes

Can our government
Be decent and open
As the 39th President, he has spoken
Jimmy Carter says Yes

[spoken]
As your President, I, Jimmy Carter
Know it is possible to run a government efficiently
With out sin or any corruption
I will do my level best
To run the government decently without any statement of eruption
Errors and wrongdoings I will reveal to the public
For corruption whie I'm in office I will not barter
I'll stand tall like Old Glory, faithful to the Republic
Security will prevail as sure as I'm the President
President Jimmy Carter

Jimmy, Jimmy Carter
Our 39th President
Jimmy, Jimmy Carter
Our 39th President
...

John F Kennedy

On that very sad day John F Kennedy was called away
We didn't know he was leaving Washington to stay
And now he is gone
And all we can do is sing these songs
He had no fears
Even though many people have shed tears
And when John F Kennedy was called to rest
I know that he did his best
He tried so hard
To give each and every one a start
He tried to make the rich man see
If it wasn't for the poor man, how could we eat?
In Dallas out in the street
Someone wanted to see him defeated
He saw that there really was no use
Because there's nothing anyone wanted to do.

Of the 25 or so songs on the CD, only these three are about US presidents. The rest are about groovy things like vans, roller-disco, drums, dancing, astronauts, gettin it on, etc.. Each song is crazier than the last; and all are so bad as to leave you slack-jawed: how could someone write those words? How desperate for work must those musicians have been to put any effort at all into trying to make those words sound good ? When the author got the record back, did they realize how stupid those words really were, or did they shop the record around, trying to get radio play ? So many questions. Most of them are amusing in some way, or at least grotesque enough to keep me listening, but one or two are actually so bad I can't find anything redeeming about them at all.

As amusing as they can be, though, it's tough to sit through all 25 of them at once. But having one pop up now and then on the ol' iPod shuffle is good for a chuckle now and then.