the martini shaker* - Latest Comments

Re: Smart Playlists be damned!

Michiel — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:32:05 -0000

I guess if the only thing to worry about is that one small aspect then it still can't be too bad. I must say on my phone I have a lot of tracks and I almost never have time to listen to anything!!! Hope you find a suitable solution!

Re: Smart Playlists be damned!

Felix Beniamine — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:53:47 -0000

Hi,

I fully agree with you. Except on one point: they now do liveupdate (my PlayList is, say, Composer=Mozart and Playcount=0). But the behavior is still incorrect. If you have a playlist made of , say track 1,2,3,4 and 5, after your hear Track1, the list has only 4 tracks (good!, it does liveupdate!) but the next track plaid is number 3, not number 2 as expected!!!!
(note if you turn off liveupdate on iTunes, then it does does liveupdate, of course, but correctly plays track 1, then 2, then 3, ...)

If anyone has a solution for that....

Felix.

Re: Taking a finger out of a pie.

Average Jane — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:10:26 -0000

I know exactly how you feel. In a couple of weeks, I'll end my terms on two not-for-profit boards I've sat on for *years*. As much as I enjoyed working with them, I am SO looking forward to having more time to write songs, write other stuff, work around the house, etc.

Re: Pulling the plug.

Lawrence Standifer Stevens — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:26:32 -0000

I have a TV. It works perfectly well. I just don't watch it. I don't have cable. Actually, I've never had cable. If I did, I'd become one with the Food Network and be absorbed into the television like a fly is sucked into a blue bug zapper.

I'm kind of a movie freak, though. I subscribe to Netflix but watch about 3 times more via their "Watch Instantly" service than I do from the disks that arrive in the mail.

Hulu is my friend, too. When I don't want to watch a feature-length film, I'll jump on Hulu and see what's interesting that will take up half the time, such as an old Pretender episode. (Kinda have the hots for "Miss Parker." But that's another story.)

Jumping off the grid wasn't and isn't so painful, sort of like boiling a frog, if you'll excuse the cliche. There's so much video available that is actually interesting available on YouTube, Vimeo, or several other sites that I don't have time to miss conventional television.

Get used to it. TV is dead. Long live video streamed from a thousand sources whenever I want it.

Re: Pulling the plug.

Dave — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:19:55 -0000

I did it awhile back, and I've saved so much money it's not even funny. I found that the only show I was missing was also Big Bang Theory, but I have a well-performing antenna connection to CBS so it's all good. For sporting events on cable, I simply have a lot of good friends who are willing to have me over. After all, such things are about friendship and community, right?

And the only other thing I'm not doing is sitting around watching just whatever is on. I find that I'm using my spare time more productively, and it allows more time with my wife, and eventually kids. How can all this not be a net gain?

Re: Pulling the plug.

3rdmartini — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:56:24 -0000

Getting back to projects I care about is an attractive offer indeed.

Re: Pulling the plug.

3rdmartini — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:48:26 -0000

At this point, we're pretty much "single point of failure" anyway. We're AT&T U-Verse subscribers, so all our programming is IPTV-based anyway.

And, really, by adding a sufficient antenna to pick up local ATSC transmissions, we're kind of better off in that respect than we are now. :)

Re: Pulling the plug.

John Dowdell — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:39:07 -0000

I like diversity in transport channels. During 9/11 the web locked up, but broadcast was still efficient.

"Single point of failure" becomes your network connection. That's a little scary to me.

jd/adobe

Re: Pulling the plug.

Stacey — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:06:19 -0000

We don't have cable right now and I'm not missing it very much. I do miss Big Bang Theory and the zillion forensics shows I used to watch, still it's a net gain. We watch some stuff via dvd, but the tv is never on just for noise.

Re: Pulling the plug.

Scott — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:53:30 -0000

Dude, I canceled my cable back in January and haven't been happier. It frees you up so much time to get back to projects that you really care about. Not to mention the fact that you don't just sit around and watch whatever's on next just because it's on.

But another thing I did to smooth the transition was that I got a Netflix account, because you can easily watch movies and TV on there streaming with the $15/month account. It's great.

Good luck!

Re: Back to basics.

golublog — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:08:40 -0000

My friend got me that book, tucker max is kind of a horrible example of humanity. And he's getting his own movie.

Re: My new friend, Red Stag.

3rdmartini — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:08:43 -0000

Just tried a splash of it with the orange bitters. WOW. This stuff just keeps getting better.

Re: My new friend, Red Stag.

Average Jane — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:30:44 -0000

Sounds like my beloved Boulevard Smokestack Bourbon Barrel Quad ale without the ale. I'm sold!

Re: I realize.

adchick — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:52:27 -0000

I've been in the agency business for 27 years this summer...and I DO feel lucky. I've made a gazillion mistakes, came close to bankruptcy thanks to an alcoholic ex, and have emerged stronger and more financially stable than ever. To get the life I deserve is why I'm selling the business....(someone buy me!) Time to get away from it so I can see what I've really done. Nice, thought provoking post here.

Re: I realize.

Patchchord — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:17:27 -0000

I find it funny that you would tag this post with the word "luck." What is luck but another word for "life."

If there's one thing I've learned, I am owed nothing. Everything I get is either through hard work or laziness. So the good and the bad is mine all mine.

When I remember (and unfortunately, yes, I do have to remind myself from time to time) that I have a loving wife, a gracious and supportive family, two wonderful kids and a job that could never be categorized as dull or routine, then I always know that even the worst of days isa good day.

(Especially when I don't have to use my AK.)

Re: The chit-chat lifestyle.

Average Jane — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:52:00 -0000

I hated to miss it 'cause I knew the presentations were going to be fantastic. Will there be videos posted?

Re: Looky here… another new design.

joel — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:48 -0000

Nice, Jeremy. I really like the new design and its easy readability.

Re: Looky here… another new design.

adchick — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:55:14 -0000

Very good. Love your new look....love the name, of course!

Re: Looky here… another new design.

Kyle — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:27:11 -0000

Yay - full text in the feed at long last. Nice work on the redesign.

Re: No more Internet Explorer 6 support.

Clos — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:50:44 -0000

graceful degradation in IE6, leave a note to users of IE6 that they are currently outdated: http://www.bringdownie6.com/

Re: the cocktail napkin* - Deep in the Heart of Texas

Kyle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:40:12 -0000

Very much digging the intro/outro graphics treatments. Nice work!

Re: RSS Cobwebs

3rdmartini — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:42:07 -0000

I've been contemplating the drowning as well. In fact I'm mulling around a blog post regarding just that.

Re: RSS Cobwebs

3rdmartini — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:41:54 -0000

You made a very important distinction here... personal blogging is what I was thinking about but didn't articulate very well.

However, it's not just personal blogs in my feed reader that are fading into nothing. Some of the larger blogs I read are tapering off as well.

As for the Facebook Connect, I tried it on Safari and got an error message that leads me to believe I might know what the problem is. I'll look into it.

Re: RSS Cobwebs

Kyle Rohde — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:15:29 -0000

Absolutely. I have been on Twitter for maybe three months and I'm already pretty much sick of it. I'm in marketing and I'm very interested in online 'stuff' and yet, I'm sick of it and its overwhelming. I can only imagine how the average person feels. Once in a while it feels like we marketers (or agency people) are the only ones on these sites.

Re: RSS Cobwebs

Aaron Cathey — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:49:39 -0000

No. As long as people have opinions they'll continue to right them in blog form. Now, maybe the quick hit of Twitter has taken a little bit of its luster but I couldn't see blogs ever going away. I do, however, think that most of them have a pretty short life span.

One thing I've been pondering lately is how much we're all drowning in the web of social sites. There's too much. It's killing all of us. It's too much for us to take.