EarlWoodman.com

I have never read a self-published book before. There are so many out there, and with the lack of editorial vetting, you don’t know what you’re going to get.

But this one is a good one. It’s called Mercury Falls by Rob Kroese. If you liked The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at all, you’ll notice it’s written in a similar style, but about angels and demons. It’s very well written and very funny. I picked up the cheap Kindle version first, and then bought a paper copy.

You can tell how well off someone is by their answer to this question: “where does your clothes go when you’re not wearing it?”

The Super Rich: “I have no idea. My butler takes care of that.”

The Rich: “In the gold-plated oak wardrobe, of course.”

The Middle-Class: “In the dresser/bureau.”

The Poor: “In the Ritz crackers crate.”

The Super-Poor: “I’m never not wearing all my clothes.”

Happiness is not static. And it is not related to where you are in life, what you have, or who you know. You can call that something else. ‘Success’ maybe.

Happiness is directional, and trends. People tend to be happier when they perceive things to be going in the right direction in their life, and unhappy when things are going against them.

Take for example, this guy. Tell me he’s not the happiest dude on the planet right now. Yet he has virtually nothing. No career, no family, few possessions I expect. But things are definitely looking up!

And now consider a hypothetical situation. Let’s say Bill Gates lost his fortune and was left with a net worth of a million bucks (and a negative or zero cash flow). He’d be pretty upset, yet he would still have a whole hell of a lot more than me, and probably you too if you’re reading my blog. (I don’t have many millionaire fans.)

This could make an interesting topic for a novel.

I’ve never done a top 10 list of songs for a whole decade, but here’s the first one. I look forward to doing another in 10 years’ time, and to seeing how these tunes hold up. They are picked from the top-3 singles for each year since 2000.

10. The Ting Tings -That’s Not My Name (2008)

This is a catchy tune from just last year - a cute little pop song.

9. The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist (2002)

Is Dexter ill today? This weird, weird, weird song with endless samples comes together perfectly.

8. Sinead O’Connor - Jealous (2000)

I’m not a big Sinead fan, but every now and again she makes a great song. This is easily my fave of hers.

7. Rilo Kiley - Portions For Foxes (2005)

I have no idea what this song is about but I think it’s about how we’re all just going to be eaten eventually by wild animals.

6. Delerium with Matthew Sweet - Daylight (2001)

I have not heard a more perfectly constructed pop song.

5. Joss Stone - Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin’ One Me?) Pt. 1 (2004)

I only recently discovered that this song is a cover. Still good though.

4. Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked (2009)

This is the only Norwegian hit on my list, probably ever.

3. Metric - Help I’m Alive (2009)

I love the double drum beat in this song.

2. Weezer - Hash Pipe (2001)

Mmm mmm drugs!

1. Brandi Carlile - The Story (2008)

I wish her new album was half as good as the one this song came from.

Here they are! Songs of the year:

5. K’Naan - I Come Prepared
4. Tegan & Sara - Hell
3. Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - Relator
2. Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked
1. Metric - Help I’m Alive

Last.fm keeps track of my most-listened-to artists, but when a musician plays or sings with multiple acts, that data isn’t tracked. Here is what I put together based on my last.fm data:

Top 15 Musicians (since March 2006) including number of plays

1. Tegan & Sara - 1180
2. Corin Tucker (Sleater Kinney, Cadallaca) - 1012
3. Pete Yorn (Scarlett Johansson) - 778
4. Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley) - 723
5. Snow Patrol - 720
6. John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers) - 656
7. Juliana Hatfield (Juliana Hatfield Trio, Blake Babies) - 655
8. Pixies - 653
9. Brandi Carlile - 623
10. Matthew Sweet (Susanna Hoffs) - 590
11. Susanna Hoffs (Matthew Sweet, The Bangles) - 571
12. Queensryche - 542
13. Black Keys - 512
14. Weird Al Yankovic - 485
15. Electric Six - 462

Last time around I wrote about my newest hobby - learning Russian. Russian is a phonetic language, well structured, and in spite of the unusual Cyrillic alphabet, it feels more like a designed language than English, the latter of which is much like a linguistic stew with dumplings. In spite of these things, oddities do exist, like the multiple types of plurals in the same case, and the way italicized letters sometimes look completely different from the non-italicized versions. (An italicized T becomes an m!) I’m shocked - SHOCKED - that Russia hasn’t beaten the US into a pulp based on their superior language alone.

(By the way, when I say ‘unusual’, that’s not me trying to be an alphabetist. It’s merely the appearance in the alphabet of a backwards R, a 3, and what looks like a the droppings of a small furry rodent.)

Since February I have been learning Russian. When I started, I knew the Russian words for yes, no and physicist. My goal is to call myself ‘bilingual’, which I define as being at least capable of writing, reading, speaking and listening - communicating effectively with a native speaker. That’s a soft goal, but I think I’ll know when I get there.

In fact, on the way, I’ve been reaching some interesting milestones that I was not really aware of before I started.

The first веха was that I learned all the letters and a handful of basic words. Second, I learned how to type with a standard Russian keyboard. And most recently, I have started to realize that I recognize common letter patterns in words, and I can carry on a basic conversation. I’m starting to feel comfortable with the language.

I wonder what the next веха will be. Perhaps when I am better at Russian than French.

It’s 2009 and when I save a file in Windows, all previous history and revisions of the file are lost. That was acceptable in 1982. Some applications do it, and of course you can easily setup and use your own revision control system, but that’s a lot of overhead for what really should be built into the OS. Furthermore, there is also no built-in backup feature. You have to do it yourself. The backup problem requires too much user intervention. In my mind, it is still not solved.

(And yes, some of this stuff is in Linux and Mac to some degree (i.e. Time Machine)).

I decided it was time I stopped doing backups by running my own ftp scripts and backing up to USB hard drives. I installed Dropbox as a way to share files between Windows PCs (which is actually easier than Windows itself), and realized that with Dropbox pro ($99 / yr) plus the packrat option ($39), I get unlimited undo and 50GB of space. I setup the dropbox folder as the base folder for all my personal files. When it finishes synchronizing (50 GB is a lot!) I’ll have my automatic backup and full file history.