I’ve been addicted to The Be Good Tanyas lately. I first heard them on CBC Radio 3 (my music discovery source!) and have been on a country-indie binge ever since. Been especially loving their song Ootischenia; I think it has to something to do with a community in British Columbia. My love for the song has even spread to my friend Anita who has been playing the song on her college radio show. Check it out streaming online - Fridays at 9-11am EST.
Been playing for about a year and half now and I still suck bad. One of my major struggles was my grip on my pick. I tend to hold the pick loosely for a lighter sound since I don’t want to play too loudly in the house - however this leads me to always have my pick rotate or slowly fall out of my fingers. I’ve never been able to finish a song before because I had to stop and adjust my pick or lick my fingers for my grip.
I started by punching a couple holes into my picks but that only marginally helped. Then I found this site which has a lot of user-submitted ideas on how to fix my slipping guitar pick problem. Lots of things to try out but tonight I was able to bang out the entire “ target="_blank">Boy who blocked his own shot” song by using some double sided tape around the pick. One less thing for my mind to worry about I guess and I was able to play with ease.
Haven’t picked up the guitar in a few weeks (got back into GoW), but after tonight’s pick solution I feel like I’ve improved a bit. Maybe I’ll be able to play some more faster songs now with more confidence.
Why are some throw pillows so damn expensive? I’ve been looking at different throw pillows ever since I started thinking about going with a neutral or earth-tone template for the great room - that way I can accessorize with “splashes of color” (hate that phrase). Probably the fabric design I suppose. Even the simplest thing can become ridiculously expensive. Hopefully I can find some nice pillows and throws at Ikea and Target so I have a stockpile of colors to mess with.
Maharam Pillow from DW ($125)
Read a fascinating interview on boingboing with the co-founders of Wired and Suck - their new venture is called Critical Metrics, a recommendation aggregator across all online media. The site features playlists, recommendations and instant playback. The interview mentions possible Rhapsody integration which is brilliant - taking advantage of the Rhapsody API to offer additional perspectives on music.
They specifically mention Yottamusic which is a fast and useful Rhapsody “skin” that allows easier playlist creation. I haven’t had a chance to play with Yottamusic yet and I was surprised to even learn that we had this partnership.
Interesting that the instant playback on the front page of Critical Metrics looks like the same flash mp3 player I use on this blog…I wonder how they got the rights to be able to play full-length top 50 songs.
Update: wow the more I read about Yottamusic the more I want to try it (It’s not working for me right now) - they even added a social element to Rhapsody so you can easily see what other users are listening to.
Only 73 more days till my close date. House is coming along well - my only concern is that they have not taken out the fiberglass shower yet; it should be on scheduled to be tiled. They have not done much to the inside for a couple weeks now. This past week they painted the outside shake, and started assembling vanities in the garage.
The crawlspace looked a little wet, I hope that is just residual water from the winter and not more water coming in from the outside. I will definitely need to take another look before closing.
The kitchen and great room - not much happening except for the island construction
The laundry area did not come with a sink, so we had to upgrade - the standard spec of the home is pretty sub-par I felt, they really force people to upgrade many things to have a half decent house
Wet crawl space…very odd. I will check back in a couple weeks and see if there is any improvement or work done. More pics in the flickr stream
