Month: October 2008

Basement rockstars

Back in the day, long time ago, I used to play in a band. Two bands actually. Both of which are the stuff of legend, but only one ever seen in public. This is not about that band.

Recently, fellow bandwagonjumper-friend Jonas made me aware of a new music sharing site called Soundcloud.com. I signed up. Did nothing for a while. Nothing yet again for another few weeks untill I got another nudge and hint to start using the service a few days ago. I finally broke down and dug through my mp3 collection of previously recorded material that hasn’t been listened to for ages and started uploading.

Daily WTF

Three celebs and a pile of wax

Post author By peteDog
Post date October 28, 2008

This image is on the front page of DN.se (swedish newspaper) today, and I’m wondering: Are pictures of Brad Pitt so hard to come by that you must resort to using a wax doll?!

Daily WTF

Post author By peteDog
Post date October 28, 2008

This lady is insane and out of touch. We don’t need another ignorant nut in the white house again. It seems like she’s giving us a choice of electing Kim Jong Il or John McCain. Wonderful! If this lady is ever president, I’m moving to the country and building myself a bunker in preparation for the nuclear winter.

Funny Stuff

The Christian gene

Post author By peteDog
Post date October 23, 2008

The scientist finally found it!

Ah. Now I know, I didn’t have a choice. I was born this way….. 🙂

Funny Stuff

Theology of a 5-year old

Both the wife and I are really trying to get our kids to speak and understand all three languages we speak. So, we make the effort to at least try to read books in all of them each night. Normally, we only have time for one or two books, depending on how tired the kids are. Yesterday, I grabbed a children’s Bible that we have in Polish, trying to be the good Catholic father. It’s actually pretty good and the stories are super simplified so the kids can understand. They’re also easy enough for me to read without constantly getting stuck on harder words, as my polish reading isn’t what it should be.

Lately, our daughter has developed this habit of pulling random books off the shelf and walking around the house pretending to read. Sometimes she even sits down and “teaches” a class with her stuffed animals as the students. Yesterday she schooled her purple bear Gentleman on French existentialism.

So today, I heard she was talking about how Jesus is the son of God while “reading” Catcher in the Rye and the Communist Manifesto. I’m thinking the girl must have some things seriously confused. Isn’t talking about God while reading Marx the equivalent of shouting profanities in church?

I’m sure Marx is turning in his grave.

Music/Movies

Elliot Smith and the Big Nothing

Post author By peteDog
Post date October 21, 2008

Just ran across this article about Elliot Smith and it made me feel a little sad, yet again, that this talented guy left us way before his time. Gotta give it to the guy though, his way to go out was like something straight out of a Shakespeare play. Self inflicted knife wound to the chest. Tragic, but hardcore.

Five years ago today, on October 21, 2003, Elliott Smith died. The intentions behind his death still not been confirmed, but some time that day, Elliott met the Big Nothing.

Read the rest of the article here.

Random Crap Weird

Credit crisis explained

Post author By peteDog
Post date October 21, 2008

… with drawings, so we regular folks can understand. I was picturing it more as an expedition to Middle-earth, but whatever works I guess.

The credit crisis as Antarctic expedition from Marketplace.

Deep Thoughts Random Crap

Kill all the trees

Post author By peteDog
Post date October 20, 2008

I’m a little frustrated right now. Everyone is used to paying bills, but for some unexplained reason, bills in this country contain an ungodly amount of crap. People not living in this country might not know what I’m talking about.

A normal, let’s say, phone bill, in Sweden contains: the phone bill. The end.

A normail phone bill in the US contains: the phone bill, 1 envelope (since a lot of people still use checks to pay bills, so they need an envelope to put the check and the bill in to send back to the phone company), some advertisement letting you know about how absolutely wonderful this phone company is and possibly some more advertisement about some other deal explaining how you can call your loved ones in Burundi for only $2 a minute.

Tips & Tricks

TV junkies unite

Remember how I previously wrote about how to watch Hulu from outside the US? Now I’d like to do a little follow-up post. This one isn’t about Hulu, but about a piece of software that has proven to be very useful to me.

The software I’m talking about is Miro. Miro is basically, a media player with a built in RSS feed reader. No big deal, right? Well, I guess, except that it’s really awesome. What it does, is that it turns your PC into a DVR. Kinda. Miro comes with a bunch of already pre-installed free channels you can download and watch, but should you want to maybe explore other (wink wink) options, there’s a great website called tvRSS, has feeds of pretty any show out there. All you have to do is look up the feed, and subscribe to it in Miro. This way you will have new shows downloaded directly to your PC almost instantly after they air on TV over here the US. No more looking all over various torrent sites for it.

All of this is 100% illegal, so it goes without saying that you should probably never use it. Ever.

Stuff I Like Tech Junk

Bandwagon jumper

I am one. I like trying out new stuff. It’s really a compultion at this point. Any new service online that comes out, I have to try. If you can sign up right away, I do it. If not, I’ll ask for an invite.

Most of the stuff I sign up for, is pretty useless and unnecessary. At least for me, but being who I am, I still want to check it out. Once in a while however, I run into something that really saves my life. Ok, not literally, of course.

Gmail for me was one of those things. Another thing, has been pod casting. I got my iPod about 3 years ago and discovered podcasts around that time and haven’t been able to live without them since. My commute to work without them would have been unbearable.

For some it’s Myspace or Facebook or Twitter. Although I’ve tested all three (of course), I haven’t really loved any of them. I use Facebook, mostly by just updating my status. All the random Facebook apps drive me crazy. I feel old and cranky when people throw a zombie at me or Vampire bite me and I ignore them. Just never really understood what the point was. No bad feelings, folks. I’m just too busy bandwagon jumping to have the energy to understand the meaning of all the weird Facebook apps out there.