A Defected Weekend Ends in Jade
That could have been a prognostication about my March 3-4, 2007 and I wouldn’t have known what the hell it was talking about.
It was a Defected Weekend in that I got a lot of new albums from the Defected label out of the UK, Defected In The House Miami 2007, Urban House Vol. 1, Martin Solveig In The House & Café Mambo 2006. I also got a few Martin Solveig imports, so my apartment was hoppin’ this weekend. My last.fm page was getting a steady stream of “various artists” which is a good thing, it’s nice to at least appear multi-faceted. I was listening to music more than watching television and it’s a good thing since I needed to do chores and stay motivated. I’m not terribly fond of having to haul things down to a laundry room, but it is nice to have multiple machines available at one time as I found a time I could get 5 machines at once and thereby take care of all my laundry at once. The subsequent folding… not so much fun, but I had good tunes to pass the time. I don’t think I came near Raine’s total of adding 8 gigs of new music to his library, but I did have to rearrange the priority of playlists to get all the new stuff on the iPod last night. I would love some sort of definitive genre list to help sort my stuff, I’ve got some entries in the genre field that even I don’t know what they mean.
Sinus issues that kept me home on Friday finally cleared up mid-Saturday so I was able to get out for a little walk as it was gorgeous. I backslid a little bit on the eating well thing and had ciders and pizza, but not too much at a single sitting, so a large pie became 4 meals. I’d have done better to create a menu and go shopping for supplies, but honestly as much as I enjoy roasting a chicken, or doing a lasagna or paella, it kinda sucks to have all that food for just me and many recipes can’t really be cut to a single serving. Still when I look down at the growing bowl full of jelly that was once my somewhat flatter stomach, fasting starts to look like a really good idea. Or maybe I could do one of those crazy cult diets, nothing but rice and water and selling cookies at traffic intersections — or maybe not.
Last night I installed Jade Empire (Special Edition), I was holding off ’til just before bed as I didn’t want it to consume the weekend and keep me from chores and I knew I’d get tired in spite of the fun of playing and go to bed regardless. As Michael loves it, so do I. I’m getting the hang of the mouse/keyboard interface at the moment, but I think I’ll try going to a controller later. I’m not the best with controllers, but they seem to be better at warding off the wrist strain that smacks of carpal tunnel. The game is gorgeous and with a very simple interface. I’m still getting the hang of fighting and got my butt kicked more than a few times but MMORPGs have me too used to being able to stand still while the enemies come to me and never having to worry about blocking attacks (mostly because it’s not an option). It will definitely pass the time on those evenings when I don’t feel like being a super hero or a denizen of Middle Earth.
“Retail Standardization Program” (google news search link) — the phrase the US Postal Service is using to explain why they’ve removed the clocks from 37,000 post offices in retail areas. “We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock.” Because time spent waiting isn’t a factor of (customer) service at all, right? Every time I’m someplace without any clocks it makes me feel like being in the casinos in Las Vegas where they have a vested interest in customers having no idea what the world outside is like. Most casinos are dimly lit like a perpetual dusk and it was always shocking to walk out into the sunshine when we were done gambling and wanted fresh air (maybe casinos will start putting in oxygen bars to take care of that need as well). Of course most of us have watches and cell phones, etc, but it’s still ingrained in me to look up at the wall in search of what time it is before resorting to more modern methods. — A similar story from a little over a year ago in the UK, Time’s up for bank clocks. It seems like the trend is making people forget how long they’ve been waiting instead of working on shortening the wait with more efficient service.
