Why Are People Such Assholes?!

One of the most notable earthquakes in the history of Baltimore hit today! It was the result of a 5.8 quake that originated in VA and WOW! There's a first time for everything right!? In my 30 years, I can not remember EVER feeling anything like it or even hearing about it. I also spoke with persons older than myself and they too say they've never experienced anything like it.

Sometime in June or July of last year there was apparently an earthquake overnight that some MD residents said woke them from their slumber but this bitch hit during the day, during work hours, mall shopping and nap time! 

My personal experience? I was lying in the bed preparing for my afternoon nap and I felt the bed rumble! I honestly thought I was experiencing some sort of paranormal activity because I mean... we don't get earthquakes in Baltimore right!? I ignored it as I often do when I think I'm experiencing paranormal activity but then the bed shook more and more and I literally rolled out of the bed onto the floor! I walked to the hallway and remembered something stupid about going in your bathroom during an earthquake and come to think of it, I think that was for tornadoes. Well, on my way to the bathroom, the floor was literally shaking so hard that it threw me into my parents bedroom. I climbed on the bed and said, "I'll just stay here for now."

I was experiencing the perfect mix of fear and exhilaration because I'd never felt a quake before! So after it was all said and done, I ran outside to chat with the neighbors, the conversation was very basic and along the lines of "WHAT THE FUCK?!" So I immediately took to social networking to report on my experience and to see what everyone else experienced. Almost immediately on Twitter there were comments like, "Chill out east coast, it wasn't that big of a deal" or "Are these people serious? 5.9 is nothing, shut up." At that moment I instantly knew how people from California felt when they saw there first snow and how we would quietly snicker about them like, "seriously? it's only snow." 

Instead of people showing the least amount interest or saying something kindly stupid like "glad you had your first quake, join the club and hope everything is ok!" We were greeted with sarcasm and dismissive comments. It kinda irritated me actually and I figured I'd bitch about it here. 

How was your earthquake experience? 

What's So Wrong With Being Alone?

I must be the only person I know that's kinda okay with being single. Sure, sometimes I get a little lonely, I see most of my friends moving on in "faux relationships" pretending to be happy and that they've "found the love of their life" and I'm okay with that.

I guess the problem is that most people don't have "something else." And that something else could be anything from a hobby or friends, or just random things to do on their spare time. I personally love reading about what's going on in the world and our country in particular. I love listening to music. Watching movies and my major television shows, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, finding random places to have lunch dates with my friends, spending blood pressure-rising time with my family, increasing my knowledge in certain areas and just... listening to people. Trying to get a better understanding of why people are the way they are is like, my newest favorite thing to do.

I love to write stories! Stories that I'd never share with most of you (or any) but I like to keep my creative juices flowing. I like people watching, I like telling my friends about my people watching. I like to think about where my life will be in 10 years or 5 years. I like to think about new ideas for a small business... most never pan out but it doesn't stop me from thinking of new ones! Most people won't admit this one but... I love sleeping! I love everything about it: the coziness of my bed, the cool breeze from the ceiling fan. I love to dream. I love where my mind takes me when I'm not consciously in control. There's nothing better than an active imagination.

Now, most of this might now sound not exciting to you but guess what... you're probably thinking about who you're going to spend the rest of you life or why the guy or girl from the bar hasn't called you back yet. Or why that person that you slept with on the first night is now ignoring your calls. You're probably saying "is it Friday yet?" because you hate your job. You're probably wondering and stressing about all of this stuff that makes your life completely un-enjoyable, like being single. I'm sorry but... I'm not concerned about that.

We've got one life people. There's no after-life. There's no "meeting on the other side" so please, start making the most out of this life. Stop worrying about falling in love. And... is it really "falling in love" if it's a manufactured love? Is constantly being on the prowl for your "life-mate" falling in love? No, it's manufacturing a situation where you can try to make somebody like you enough so they never leave you.

That seems a bit creepy to me...

-G

Spotify!

Ok, if you haven't gotten on the Spotify bandwagon yet, I just wanna know WHY!? Let me explain a little bit about what Spotify is:

Spotify is basically the best of iTunes and Pandora all rolled up in one. If you're familiar with iTunes then you're aware that you have to purchase content and there's a pretty decent sized library to do so. Pandora is basically a "music-matching" service that matches the types of music that you like based on genre, artist or song choice. You have no control over which songs Pandora will choose but 9 times out of 10, you're generally pretty satisfied with the selection.

Spotify, combines these two otherwise awesome services all into one application. If you decide that you would like to listen to 'Cinderella Man' by Eminem, you type it in and Spotify streams the song to your PC via their desktop based application. If you decide, "wow, that was a good song", you can just as easily type in 'Recovery' by Eminem and listen to the entire album! You can listen as much as you'd like to the same song or album but with such a VAST library of content, I'm not sure why you'd want to.

To date, the only album that I've requested and is not available is '21' by Adele and I'm not quite sure why it's not available but it's driving me absolutely insane!

Anyway, if you have a smartphone, namely iOS, Android or Blackberry device, you can carry your content with you on the go! BUT, you have to pay a fee of $9.99/month to do so. Now, I purchase at least 1 new album per month so the monthly charge is waaaaay worth it to me. But don't forget, it's 100% free to continue listening on your computer.

The only downside (if you wanna call it that) with paying the $9.99/month is the moment that you stop subscribing, the content is no longer available via your smart phone device to stream. However, as soon as your re-subscribe, all of your previous content becomes available almost immediately so technically you never lose anything.

The other cool thing about using your smartphone is that you can choose your favorite songs or albums for "offline listening." Basically, what that means is Spotify makes the content available for you to listen to via your smartphone without using any of your monthly data. How awesome is that?! It's pretty frickin' cool.

Anyway, Spotify is only available via invitation for the time being, so if you're interested in checking it out, let me know and I'll shoot you an invite.

-G

What's the problem with eBooks?

So. Apparently there are people who have big issues with the onslaught of iBooks/eBooks. People are saying that the "tradition of reading will fade away" if we embrace eBooks. While i sympathize and understand their concerns, I think they are reading (no pun intended) way too much into this.

The tradition of reading will never go away, I don't think society will allow it. Some of life's greatest achievements, discoveries and experiences are found in traditional books. There will always be people who prefer the touch of a book, the smell of a new hardcover and the admiration of their collection on a shelf. Our culture will always have those people and I don't see them fading away much like the vinyl enthusiasts. You may have to search for a new album on vinyl, but you can certainly find it. CD's are still around, they may not sell the way they used to, but you can still buy a CD.They are no more expensive than they were 5years ago, if anything, they are slightly less expensive.

Our society has a knack for not embracing the next big thing and sometimes with good reason. I think there is an issue with everything being electronic with no paper back-up. I think there is an issue to only be trained on computers and not have the basic knowledge of a typewriter or how to spell without the assistance of a computer. These things are problems, we cannot control how corporations choose to run their businesses but we can control the reach of our own intelligence.

Don't blame technology for moving forward, embrace it. Be objective, but make sure those objections are valid and intelligent and by all means, if you don't prefer eBooks/iBooks, don't buy them.

Oh yes, I am so sold!

Oh yes, the day has come and gone but it still feels so very good! I have waited quite sometime for Apple to unveil the no longer mythical iPad! I just got done watching the keynote presentation and yes, Apple will probably be funneling more money out of my pocket in a few months.

Laptops are easy for travel, they are convenient, productive and pretty much lightweight (if you have a MAC). But honestly, whenever I find myself out with my laptop, very rarely am I doing anything besides surfing the net, listening to music or browsing through photos so the full power of my laptop is not needed at that time. I love my iPhone but looking at photos can sometimes be a little disappointing just because of the miniature size, browsing the web is upsetting for the same reason.

The perfect device to enjoy these features is the iPad. I have been in the market for an E-Reader for the past few months but found the Kindle® slightly unappealing and along comes the iPad!

We all know that I am a tech baby and a proud tech baby! I can appreciate the feel of an actual book, I can appreciate the visual appeal of a physical bookshelf... but thousands of books at the palm of my hand?! I can't resist. In my never-ending quest to become more green, this is another great opportunity! No longer do I have to contribute to the waste of paper for book manufacturing AND the books are fairly less expensive in digital format.

Looking over all of the blogs today I saw nothing but complaints, the iPad was either not what was expected or was exactly what was expected and people were disappointed. My answer to that is DON'T BUY ONE! Shut the fuc* up and let the rest of us "idiots" enjoy it. The same goes out to people like my dad who are so disappointed that Laser Disc and VHS are no longer around. You can feel free to continue watching your movies on VHS (good luck in the next few years getting newer titles, if that time hasn't already come) and I'll stick to my BluRay HD movies.

I think there are things that we can all appreciate about the past but this is the present and your medium is D E A D so move on. Whoppers from Burger King don't taste the same as they used to but you don't see me complaining do you? I just don't eat them anymore. Pepsi and Coke don't taste the same anymore, so I limit my intake. Sitcoms aren't as funny as they used to be so I don't watch them anymore and I think you get the point. We move on and embrace new technology while keeping a healthy memory of what was. Technology will move along, with or without you.

Why I love iTunes...

There are those that can argue and are probably right to some degree that digital music possesses none of the quality of a good ole fashioned record or CD even. I love listening to music. I love singing in my room when no one is around, I love singing in the car with a cup of Dunkin Donuts® coffee in my hand swerving in and out of traffic and smiling at the lady in the vehicle next to me. As long as I can hear some degree of instrument mixed in with vocals, I am good to go! So, these people that speak of the "missing quality" from mp3's and AAC's (which are actually pretty good) I say BOO HOO! Feel completely free to continue listening to your records and 8tracks and whatever it is that you do, I will continue LEGALLY purchasing and downloading my electronic files.

For one, I no longer have to own a CD rack, thank GOD! All of my files are magically stored and quite beautifully organized on my laptop computer and backed up via Time Capsule. When purchasing via iTunes, most CD's have the Digital Booklet that comes with the purchase of any album so I can still look at the lyrics when I'm not sure what the hell I'm singing.

The digital downloads are typically a little cheaper than if you purchased the album from a retail location. The only album that I've paid more than $10 for recently was Robin Thicke's new collection, which was worth every penny.

You can also purchase MP3 files from Amazon.com which are automatically transferred into your iTunes music library and just so you're aware, Amazon is sometimes cheaper than iTunes.

Digital downloads are environmentally friendly! I feel so green when I purchase a digital download because I haven't contributed to the waste of paper and plastic to sell the media. Yes, it's a major reason of why I got into the digital market in the first place.

If you want the physical feel, you can always burn your files onto a CD and take it with you on your travels and when you burn as MP3, you can get as many (sometimes more) as 80 songs on one CD! It's amazing right? Right now I am dancing in my chair to Madonna's "Hung Up" and I am quite pleased with the sound quality (just thought I'd mention that).

I also have the option of buying a single song from an album and coming back months later to "Complete my Album" which basically means, you can buy the remainder of the album minus the price you paid for the single song you purchased previously. So, no more buying single CD's at Sam Goody and then having to spend $14 for the whole album!

Also with digital, I don't have to worry about dragging along that dreadful CD case whenever I'm on the road, most of my song library is located right on my iPhone! Now depending on your car stereo speakers, you may suffer some quality issues but let me tell you, when I was breaking the sound barrier in the Charger, there was nothing better than my $13 auxillary cord and my iPhone! With random play, artists select random play and the Genius playlist, I never got bored.

So, to those who just can't stand the new age of music I say, stick to what you love but let the rest of us enjoy the new age. Times change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst, I personally view this as a music revolution and I appreciate the technology! 'Nuff Said.

--Greg

Uh oh, look who's blogging... again. :)

Wow, I actually think that one day I will stick to blogging and never stop but here I am again so who cares right?!

There are plenty of things to talk about so stay tuned!