David Grahame

If I had to recommend one artist recently added to my collection for everyone to listen to, I would say, David Grahame. Here are three good examples of this unassumingly amazing songwriter. Right click to save as…

Steady Thing – Might as well be Big Star
LA at All – How can you live in a town where everyone is writing a song?
Each First Kiss – Someone give this to Faith Hill and let Nashville gloss it up and make millions

As far as I’m aware, Grahame’s only major contribution to pop stardom was co-writing Mr. Big’s “To Be With You.” But don’t hold that against him. In other news, I think he has retired from the music business out of frustration. Please buy his CDs from the good people at NotLame.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

So Aaron Sorkin, the creator of my favorite TV show ever[1], starts a new show that rolls together actors from over five of my other favorite TV shows: Matthew Perry from Friends, Nate Corddry from The Daily Show, Steven Weber from Wings, Evan Handler from the short-lived It’s Like…You Know, Christine Lahti from Chicago Hope AND an actor from my one of my all-time favorite movies[2], Carlos Jacott.

I’ve only watched one episode, and so far it seems OK. It will take some time before I start to see these familiar actors as actual characters and not that guy from that show.

One thing I will say is that, between this and 30 Rock, My Name is Earl, and The Office, I’m giving my Comcast digital cable a stay of execution. I had been planning to cut off my cable TV until the new fall season started.

1.) Sports Night
2.) Kicking and Screaming

Reflections on Texas

It has probably been said that Dallas is to LA as Austin is to San Francisco, but I would go a step further to say that Dallas is Los Angeles without all the fun stuff to do.

When I think of Dallas I think of heat, bright sunlight, traffic congestion, pavement, urban sprawl, no major natural water source, SUV’s and superficially-dressed women with breast implants. In other words, LA minus the movie and music industry.

Boo $150 Semi-Disposable Swedish Bedframes!

It’s about 5 inches too short for my mattress. Either I have a freaky mattress or Ikea has unrealistic expectations for mattress lengths. I must now either go buy a new mattress or disassemble my new bedframe. My bedroom only has room for one. I may sleep on the couch tonight. I’m tired. And I have no idea what to do with my box springs. Currently it’s standing on its side with no place to go. Those things are dangerous, by the way.

On the bright side, the entertainment center has been completed. It’s huge and I feel like Bob Vila[1] for putting it all together. The downside is that I want to back it up to the wall and fill it with records and such, but that is a task I only want to perform once. As I have yet to purchase a new TV and receiver, I must now do this soon so that I can bring some closure to the disarray that is my living room.

Oh and my 5-disc CD changer won’t fit anywhere in the entertainment center but alongside the TV where the record player is supposed to go. I guess I’ll have to get a new CD player…dagnabbit. Maybe I can just stack the record player on top of the CD player.

1.) OK Tim Allen.

Hooray for Semi-Disposable Swedish Furniture!

I went to Dallas last weekend for Natalie‘s art show and to investigate the Ikea in Frisco. Wow. Now I’ve finally experienced the distinctly Swedish combination of utility and design elegance that people on the coasts have known about for over 15 years[1].

I came home with an entertainment center, a bed frame, a coffee table, and a chair all for around $650. And it all fit in my car! At first I thought nothing would fit – I picked up the entertainment center and coffee table on Saturday and went back for the bed frame and chair on Sunday. I love the smell of commerce and wood and cardboard boxes in the morning. My car smells like a new house now.

I was very impressed with Ikea’s conscientiousness and creativity in service of utility. Everything they do seems to be dedicated to efficient storage, attractive design, recyclability and low cost. They even write an ETA of your wait on the floor in front of the checkout lanes. Hopefully their influence will help rewrite the rules for home furnishing stores. I never thought buying furniture would be a revelatory experience. Part of me wonders what the catch is. Like maybe they engage in exploitative business practices or their CEO sends salacious instant messages to his underlings like certain Florida congressmen.

Interesting side note: enough people have linked to Generation X at amazon.com using the phrase “semi-disposable Swedish furniture” that the Amazon listing is #1 in Google without even having the phrase anywhere on the page or in the cache. See “failure, miserable” for a similar effect.

1.) My first Ikea experience was around 1989 just outside Washington, D.C. on a school trip, but I didn’t care about furniture then.

Nerds on Politics

An associate of mine said words to this effect recently:

“The US is having a hard time installing a new operating system in Iraq because they’re doing it on faulty hardware. If Iraq’s hard drive is going to work it probably needs to be partitioned.”

Dead Pitchpeople

I can’t stand it anymore. The Gap commercial with Audrey Hepburn dancing to AC/DC makes me ill. Not because I dislike AC/DC or the Gap (I love the former and have no use for the latter), but because I don’t think Audrey would approve. I think it’s really quite sad that, once you’re dead, you’re apparently public domain and any coke-fueled Madison Avenue dinkwad can make you their dancing puppet.

Of course, now that I’ve said that…here are some digital mashups of the dead I actually enjoy:

DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Video (Jay-Z meets the Beatles)

BBC Radio 2’s Elvis and Friends advert

I should note that Danger Mouse’s video disclaims itself as pure experimentation for non-commercial purposes, and BBC Radio 2 does pay royalties on those artists’ songs when they are aired. So at least the puppetry of the dead isn’t being used for 3rd party profit in those cases.

The Dirtiest Thing on The Internet

As you may have heard, AOL released vast swaths of private search history data to the public recently. Now some crafty geek has made that data available for convenient browsing.

AOLSearchDatabase.com allows you to query and randomly view selections from the AOL data. Although users are identified only by an ID number, you’re able to view examples of the phrases on which they have searched. Frankly, I feel pretty dirty looking at it. But like a virtual car crash, I can’t look away. It’s an utterly fascinating series of psychological profiles of average Americans. Add to that the undeniably voyeuristic thrill of peeking into people’s search histories, and you have the makings of an ethical conundrum. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this. Maybe I’ll take this post down later, as AOL tried to do with its data, but for now I’ll just pretend that this information wants to be free. It’s interesting to note how difficult secrets are to keep in the Internet Age.

Setec Astronomy.

The Quest for Furniture Begins

Saturday Katherine and I went sofa shopping. We found some contenders, but even more fun was lunch at Hooters. Neither of us had ever eaten at a Hooters, and we’re both big fans of intrepid dining[1], so we went. The food was horrible of course, but the atmosphere was enhanced by the Razorback game. I got Katherine a balloon that said “I ♥ Hooters.”

Sunday Heather and I drove around aimlessly in her mom’s convertible BMW. Great weather for it.

One year ago today, I landed in Houston to find this:

Hurrican Rita had just blown over and the airport was nearly empty. I had a hard time getting home. Full story from the vacation travelogue.

1.) Eating somewhere you’ve never even before simply for the sake of doing so.