08.15.08
Sailing along
Just finished The Truelove, one that I’ve not read before, and have started The Wine-Dark Sea. Beginning with The Truelove, all the books are new territory for me. Up to that point, I was rereading (with great enjoyment, to be sure) and now I’m enjoying the new adventures and looking forward already to rereading them.
Make your own $95 flashlight for less than $10
The Elder Grandson dearly loves a flashlight
Miles Davis explained
I’ve been told by more than one that the great sequence of jazz trumpeters consists of: Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown. A place in this pantheon means that the trumpeter did new things. Billy Butterfield, for example, is a fine trumpeter but he didn’t break new ground, as did those on the list. (Here, BTW, is a list of the 30 greatest jazz trumpeters chosen by listeners, members, and staff of WAER.)
This excellent article on Miles Davis includes video clips. Check it out.
Protect yourself at your computer
WorkRave seems like just the ticket to avoid various problems that come from improper ergonomics at the computer. Take a look. Free, of course.
David Allen and Getting Things Done
Via Lifehacker.com, a profile of David Allen in BusinessWeek. It begins:
How many of you have “fallen off the wagon?” the motivational speaker asks. Many in the audience laugh knowingly before sheepishly raising their hands.
This isn’t an AA meeting where the offenders went on a bender. It isn’t a diet support group, and those with their hands in the air haven’t inhaled a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Even so, the 111 business, government, and nonprofit executives (not to mention this reporter) assembled in a Washington hotel conference room are in dire need of help. Distracted by calendar alerts, burdened by back-to-back meetings, swimming in e-mail, we’re all there to get the crunched-schedule monkey off our backs.
Our potential savior, sleeves rolled up and microphone clipped on, is productivity guru David Allen. He is the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, the 2001 book that has sold more than a million copies and has been translated into 30 languages. His eponymous, $8 million time-management empire spans everything from $595 per-person public seminars to corporate speaking engagements that can earn him $40,000 to $60,000 a pop. This fall, Allen will launch a co-branded line of organizing products with school-supplies maker Mead in Staples stores. He’s also producing an e-learning curriculum that will extend his reach even deeper inside corporations.
Widely abbreviated as GTD, Allen’s method of getting things done focuses on two basic concepts. The first is that by dumping all the tasks floating around in our heads (everything from “buy toothpaste” to “write strategic plan”) onto paper or into software, and then sorting them into a system of lists, we become better able to deal with the unexpected crises that disrupt our days. The second is that …
Mouse now really fixed. I hope.
Turning it off and back on worked, but only for a few minutes. I did hear from a customer support person who had several things to suggest. The first I tried really has seem to have worked:
1. Hold down left button.
2. While holding it down, turn mouse off and then back on.
3. Still holding down left button, click right button 5 times.
4. While doing that, chant, “Please work now” 3 times.
Well, the 4th step I just made up, but the other steps are authentic. And it worked. It reconnects the mouse, though I would think simply turning it off and then on would do a reconnection. But, hey, so long as the double-clicking stops…
The Kaye effect
I’ve blogged this before, but it’s perfect Friday Fodder. Via Cool Stuff:
WavePad: free audio editing
In case you need to edit audio files, take a look at this post. From the link: “WavePad has support for many audio formats including WAV, MP3, VOX, GSM, Real Audio, AU, AIF, FLAC, and OGG.”
A movie I want to see: Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
Take a look. And, hey, I see that there are several Anita O’Day movies on Netflix.
Extremely good movie: Force of Evil
Force of Evil is a 1949 movie starring John Garfield, based on a novel about the numbers racket. Martin Scorsese wrote, “Force of Evil has been a major influence on my work, particularly on Mean Streets, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas.” Definitely worth seeing.
Some things I noticed: the plot is extremely strong, and the numbers racket is explained clearly so the movie has the ring of reality: nothing vague about the way things work. The dialogue is well paced and highly intelligent: smart people talking as adults. The conflicts arise naturally. Spellbinding, at least for me.
Also, Serenity has to be about one of the best science-fiction films ever made. Last night was the second time I’ve seen it, and it still works.
I got both of these from the library. Great institution, the library.
Slant Bar and coconut
Geo. F. Trumper Coconut Shaving Cream this morning, and a fine fragrance it is when you’ve been with Aubrey and Maturin in the tropics only the evening before. The Rooney Style 1 Size 1 made a rich lather, and the Merkur Slant Bar with whatever blade it has (Iridium?) did a fine, smooth, effortless shave. And for the aftershave, St. Johns Bay Rum seemed the logical choice.
I’m doing a little poll on SMF on the Slant Bar, and as of this morning:
| If you’ve used both Slant Bar and HD, what do you find? | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Total Votes : 14 | |||||||||||||||||||||
