Monday, May 22, 2006

Casey Kasem on steroids

One thing that used to be a staple of major summer holidays was the Top 500 countdowns. I haven't seen much of it lately down here in Atlanta, save for the 99X countdown I linked to a while back. Well, it looks like there will be at least one Top 500 countdown that might be worth catching, and you can all find it online at WOXY.com (the "future of rock and roll" from Rain Man) over Memorial Day weekend -- it's another Top 500 Modern Rock tracks. You can look at last year's list to get an idea where they're headed.

Not sure how much I'll be able to catch, but at least it's good to see at least another "radio" outlet (since WOXY is now exclusively online) bringing back the holiday weekend countdown.

Friday, May 12, 2006

More random musings

More random musings
--I'm trying to get my stuff together for the move, and so far it's involved clearing out about 5-6 years worth of EWs and SIs. Next up is figuring out which books that I bought at Goodwill sales over the years will end up going back to Goodwill.
--Eventually I'll read The DaVinci Code, but instead I finished up reading this book, which was written by a former colleague from the college paper. It's a compelling and entertaining read, and it should be interesting if and when it gets made into a movie.
--Speaking of movies, I did see M:I3 the other day, and when you watch that and 24 in the same day, all the plot twists, chicanery and silly corruption will make your head spin. Still, it's good for what it's supposed to be.
--It's fun to see some old contestants return for the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, but I can't help but feel a tad jealous that I couldn't get a second chance to be on the show. I will say that this is one of the first times where I've been familiar with almost every one of the TOC competitors by watching them on TV. But for now, I guess I can help others pass their auditions that are coming up.
--And how did I miss Leon getting traded for, what else, a bunch of cases of beer.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today

In a move that's a bit overdue, I'm being transferred up to the New York office, starting in mid-July. The details of what I'll be doing up there is still to be determined, but it's probably not much different than what I'm doing now.

I've enjoyed my nine years (yikes, has it been that long?) in Atlanta, but I guess you can go home again.

Austin City Limits

Talking points from a long weekend in Austin for TRASHionals 9:

-- Flew Southwest for the first time, having to go from Birmingham. The 2 1/2-hour ride from Atlanta to Birmingham was fine (first time in Alabama, shockingly), but the adventure parking was amusing because the airport still had signs for "Long-Term Parking," but the lane for it had a few extra speed bumps and a cone moved out of the way. After navigating that, I realized the machine wasn't working and I had to back out and into the "Daily Parking" lane (which is exactly the same price, etc., except that you don't realize that until you see a tiny sign mentioning price right at the gate to the parking deck). That confused both me and another guy with Georgia plates trying to come in. At many airports, there are three levels of parking, so blocking out that third (and usually cheapest) option just confuses the hell out of everyone.

-- I guess Southwest is like a bus or train since you invariably have to connect at least once no matter where you go. Going to, it was Birmingham to Nashville to Austin. With the layover and then delay in Nashville, I probably could've driven to Nashville and taken the flight to Austin. On the other hand, my friend Keith flew out of Nashville but through Houston to get to Austin, so who knows.

-- Austin is a very nice town, although the highways right around our hotel were a bit of a labyrinth and the map provided by the rental car company didn't help. I'd like to go back when I have more time to experience the city without other obligations. I did get to see the newly opened Blanton Museum of Art, though, on Sunday.

-- Congratulations to Phil, Tim, Rick and Josh for taking two straight games from Craig, Mike, Anne and Julie to win their first TRASHionals title. Some very exciting, well-played games in the finals. I was a bit relieved to see that the teams I had designated as top seeds (at least unofficially) did reach the final playoff group. Although it could say how predictable some of this could be. On the other hand, I was impressed with the Matt Levine-Simon Fraser combination finishing as high as they did.

-- The O'Reillys did well even though I read for three of their four losses and that one of their top players was missing to "spend more time with his family." (Congratulations, Brian and Christine, on the birth of their first child Lillian.)

-- Actually, as I'm putting this together am I realizing some of the better things that happened over the weekend. Unfortunately, most of my initial musings from the tournament were negative, and even worse, that seems to be the only way I can come out of running these events anymore.

Rob and Alma have already expressed their problems with some of the questions, for which I am immensely embarrassed, even though I didn't write any of the questions at issue.

And then there was an issue with another team (who I'm used to dealing with down here) who decided to rip me in front of any other team that was in the same food court as us for Saturday lunch because I didn't sufficiently address their protest when they came up to me with it as we were heading over for lunch. A combination of factors regarding that situation (that I won't go into here) got me very frustrated.

Then there's the array of bad or wrong questions that come up that we should've caught ahead of time. Unfortunately, it seems like those are the only things we hear about instead of questions people actually liked. Yes, we need to figure out where to improve, but after a while, I sometimes wonder if we do anything right. Maybe I take it harder since I do a lot of the little stuff that people probably don't realize I do for TRASHionals.

(I will say, however, that Kilby did tell me afterward that it was his favorite TRASHionals to attend -- unfortunately, I never got to read for him, and that it seems reactions like that are few and far between; although I'm not exactly soliciting them.)

-- But given some of the issues over the weekend, plus some other factors I am loath to discuss here related to all of it, this is my last TRASHionals (at least for now) in an official capacity I suppose I'll still be around to read and eventually play one of these days, but I think it's time to walk away. I do apologize to some of our regular players and customers, but sometimes you do have a take step backward before moving forward.

Drop it like it's pod

So in the midst of a lot of big things going on with me, I've spent a good part of the past two days trying to get that sad face of my iPod. After trying all the different "official" fixes, I finally got it to work by using an old staple -- dropping it on the floor. Since the iPod had gotten jostled a bit in my bag over the weekend, I eventually realized rejostling it might work -- and sure enough, after a handful of drops to shake the hard drive back into place, I've got operating once again and syncing up with my computer. Like one thread on the iPod boards discussion, it's almost like slamming a TV to make it work -- who knew something like that would work on something like this.