What's the deal with tipping? I've never had a job where I was supposed to tip, so admittedly this is a one-sided discussion. In fact, since I write and my constituents read I don't think it's even a discussion. So.....my thoughts. I feel lousy as a tipper to give someone a couple of bucks, or to throw my change into a tip jar. I feel like the tippee and I both know that I have an obligation to tip, and as such, I am giving them the least amount of money I can to get out of the situation with my integrity intact. So, this starts what we can call a death spiral of integrity. The tippee knows I have to give them $1 to save face. I just want to save face, so I give them that $1. But the tippee knows that they weren't being tipped because of their service but out of obligation. So now, the tippee is looking to receive $2 to know that they have provided good service. I know that $1 is no longer sufficient and now must pay $2 to save face. And so, we are left in a situation where the tippee and I are never satisfied. They will think that my $2 is a lousy tip, and I will feel like I just nickel and dimed this poor high school kid. People will always may the minimum tip they need to to save face. Even a big winner at a casino. They just want to be a bigshot. It has nothing to do with service.
Speaking of Nickels. This past Thursday, Sara and I made the trek down to Nashville for Nickel Creek’s last concert of their Farewell (For Now) Tour. I know, I know. You’re probably wondering, “What the heck does Farewell (For Now) Tour mean?” Well, I’ll tell you what I know. The lead musician in Nickel Creek is a mandolin player named Chris Thile. Chris Thile is also known as one of the top two mandolin players in the world. As such, he released his first CD at the age of 8. About the same time, his mandolin teacher had another student at the age of 12 by the name of Sean Watkins. Sean Watkins has a sister four years his younger named Sara. So, the two families met and a band with 3 kids and one dad playing bass was formed. Fast forward through two limited-releases and numerous music festivals to the year 2000 (right Conan, in the year TWO THOUUUUUsand). Their self-title major label debut produced by one Alison Krauss was nominated for two Grammy’s and they receive first commercial success.
Fast forward through two more releases (This Side and Why Should The Fire Die?) and their decision to take a break. Fact of the matter is that they have been a band for the past 18 years and they decided they couldn’t make a better CD than Why Should The Fire Die? so it was time to stop playing together. So they said 2007 was their last year and scheduled their Farewell (For Now) Tour with the last shows a two night stand at the Ryman in Nashville. The Ryman Auditorium is THE venue in THE country/bluegrass town, and I’ve long been wanting to see a show there. But I’ve been waiting. Waiting for the perfect storm of band and timing and Ryman. When I found out Nickel Creek was playing what could be their last shows there, I knew I had to be there. Thursday night. No problem. Six hours from school. No problem. Sara having class the next morning. No problem. I had to be there. So I went, and it was awesome. The Ryman has the best acoustics of all the venues I’ve been to and now tops my list of favorite places to see a show. Like I said, Nashville is a bluegrass town and a Nickel Creek show is bound to special guests. So, Nickel Creek brought friends (Bela Fleck, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Tim O’Brien, and Benmont Tench from Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers) onstage throughout the show and for their encore (which they did the right way and only played covers). I know Sara disappointed because she wanted Alison Krauss, but I thought the show was incredible. I’ve always thought that Watkins siblings were chumps and that Thile could have put anybody beside him and the band would have been the same, but after the show I’m much more impressed with Sean’s abilities on the guitar, and release that only those three could have been Nickel Creek. They did their last song (Why Should The Fire Die?) in style with no mikes or amplifiers. A great way for a great band to go out.
Andrew had free tickets to the show in Louisville and decided not to go. Now that's dumb.
Song Recommendation - The Lighthouse's Tale by Nickel Creek
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Who's gonna watch you die?
The stretch of I-65 from Lafayette to New Albany is a barren wasteland (Indy included) when it comes to radio, as such I relish when I’m south of mile marker 68 and can listen to both NPR and WFPK being broadcast from Louisville. I’ve been listening to a lot of NPR lately because the time passes a lot faster when you’re thinking about something. It also stays away from being completely polarizing like other talk shows, and broadcasts the BBC. I mean, British accents are just so fun. Anyway, how did I even get here. Oh yea. Driving and listening to NPR. Last night I was driving and listening to NPR and they were playing some of the award winners from the Third Coast Festival / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition (if the competition had a longer name, I think it would get more recognition). Apparently, entrants in the competition are the best radio documentaries from across the globe. The Gold Award winner was this BBC Documentary from a series called Don’t Hang Up. The premise of the show is these radio guys in a studio called public phones across the globe and would talk to whoever answered. They talked to a drunk 14-year in rural England, a transgender hitchhiker in New Zealand, and a security guard in the Everglades. It was highly entertaining. Plus, their accents were fun.
While Don't Hang Up was highly entertaining, the piece that had me thinking the most was an Honorable Mention Winner entitled The Ground We Lived On. The piece was about a woman and her dying father. They started taping their conversations near the end of his life when he knew that he wasn't coming back from the cancer that was killing him. The story was so touching because of its intimacy and the creators courage to not hold any of those touching moments back. It immediately made of think of the Death Cab for Cutie song titled What Sarah Said. I think that Benjamin Gibbard write some of the best lyrics in the business, and this particular song is about waiting for this girl Sarah to die. (As each descending peak of the LCD takes you a little bit farther away from me..........how good is THAT for lyric? I'll tell you, off the chart good.) Anyway, great song. Great album (Plans). I think both the documentary and song make the same point though. Although death can be scary and painful and sad, that is what love is all about. No one needs you more than when they are dying, and thats when the REAL moments are shared. The ones you'll remember. Either because you can't let them go, or because you don't want to.
Song Recommendation - What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie
While Don't Hang Up was highly entertaining, the piece that had me thinking the most was an Honorable Mention Winner entitled The Ground We Lived On. The piece was about a woman and her dying father. They started taping their conversations near the end of his life when he knew that he wasn't coming back from the cancer that was killing him. The story was so touching because of its intimacy and the creators courage to not hold any of those touching moments back. It immediately made of think of the Death Cab for Cutie song titled What Sarah Said. I think that Benjamin Gibbard write some of the best lyrics in the business, and this particular song is about waiting for this girl Sarah to die. (As each descending peak of the LCD takes you a little bit farther away from me..........how good is THAT for lyric? I'll tell you, off the chart good.) Anyway, great song. Great album (Plans). I think both the documentary and song make the same point though. Although death can be scary and painful and sad, that is what love is all about. No one needs you more than when they are dying, and thats when the REAL moments are shared. The ones you'll remember. Either because you can't let them go, or because you don't want to.
Song Recommendation - What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie
Friday, November 16, 2007
Eggs and Energy
Darn you Jake.
Jake recently wrote a post on his blog about food poisoning (the link to his blog is to the right, click on the one that says Blair), and trys to make a claim that eggs can go bad (dumb, right?). I mean I've eaten eggs that have sat in my refrigerator for months before. With that protective shell and all, how could they even begint to go bad. Plus, with that expensive price tag, ($.93 for a dozen) how could you not do everything to not throw them out. Well, all this talk of eggs, made me want an omelet. So, I grabbed the eggs from the refrigerator taking special notice of the best to buy before date of October 15 (if they want you to buy them before October 15th, that means they expect you to eat them later, so we'll say expiration date of October 25th). So I said, "That's only three weeks old, I definitely eating these guys!!" So, I turn the stove on and start cracking the eggs. I crack the first egg and immediately question the yolks texture. I crack the second egg and question why the egg didn't crack right. I grab the rest of the eggs and throw them in the trash. I couldn't do it. Jake was totally in my head. Now, I have to wait until I forget about Jake getting food poisoning from eggs to enjoy them again. I'm not European, I'm not going to go to the supermarket everyday. That's why they invented pasteurization (that begs an important question, why can't the French pasteurize their stuff, their man Louis Pasteur invented the process). So I could enjoy my eggs a month after purchase.
Two asides about eggs.
1. You can get 3 pretty nice meals out of a dozen eggs. At $.31 a pop, that has got to be the deal of the century.
2. At Evan and Scott's bodybuilding competition, they had free magazines. In one of said magazines, there was an advertisement for egg whites. The product was a bucket full of egg whites that you add as a supplement to protein mixes. The worst thing about it, is that the bucket of eggs looked like one those gigantic lotion bottle looking containers. You know the kind they have ketchup in in baseball stadiums. So you basically you be like, "Ok, I need 3 squirts of egg white byproduct in my drink. Delicious." More like disgusting.
Ok, next topic. Geothermal Energy. I recently went to the Net Impact Conference in Nashville (you can Google Net Impact for more info on them), and one of the speakers was this guy who made a documentary (Kilowatt Ours.....get it) on where our energy from. He had this really effective illustration of how when you flip a light switch, you are effectively blowing up a mountain in Appalachia. Now, is that sensationalistic. Yes. Effective. Yes. Anyway, although his film was made at a much lower budget than An Inconvenient Truth**, I liked it more because the entire second half of the film was solutions and I thought that was lacking with Al Gore's film. The solutions were based on how much money one could save. Saving money is always more effective to getting people onboard than trying give people the soft sell. Either way, you're saving the earth.
One of the solutions was geothermal heating, and it showed this man who ran his pipes really deep into the ground to have the earth geothermally heat his water. He saved something like $600 a year doing this (the man probably had a 5,000 square foot house, so why he was worried about the money, I have no idea).
There is another type of energy called wave energy. Wave energy is energy derived from wave motion. In practice this means taking a magnetic and anchoring it to the sea floor. You place this magnet inside a buoy with electric coils inside it. The motion of the ocean (hehe) causes the buoy's electric coils to oscillate up and down along the magnet and creating electricity. Cool.
But, I see a problem with both types of energy. What happens when a large amount of people start using it? Energy is a zero sum gain. If tons of people starting using energy to heat their water, that means their is less geothermal heat to go around. What effect does that have on the earth? In 100 years will people be calling for the end of geothermal energy before its too late. If tons of coastal cities create wave energy parks (groups of these wave energy buoys), the oceans kinetic energy will be turned into cities potential energy. Those waves you see at the beach will begin to become much weaker. In 50 years, will people call for the end of wave energy and the use of oil. It remains to be seen. You do have credit people for trying to find solutions.
Probably the best solution is an epidemic or aliens. I'm kidding......kinda.
Another issue I've been pondering lately is this. Ryan Adams is almost finished with his contractual obligations to Lost Highway records. As such, the rumor is there will be a box set of all his releases. I have half of Ryan Adams releases, and I want the other half. But I don't know what to do. I could buy the rest of them and not have the official box set. Or I could wait, buy the box set, and them have doubles of half his stuff. No good solution. Geez.
Song Recommendation - House By The Sea by Iron & Wine
Jake recently wrote a post on his blog about food poisoning (the link to his blog is to the right, click on the one that says Blair), and trys to make a claim that eggs can go bad (dumb, right?). I mean I've eaten eggs that have sat in my refrigerator for months before. With that protective shell and all, how could they even begint to go bad. Plus, with that expensive price tag, ($.93 for a dozen) how could you not do everything to not throw them out. Well, all this talk of eggs, made me want an omelet. So, I grabbed the eggs from the refrigerator taking special notice of the best to buy before date of October 15 (if they want you to buy them before October 15th, that means they expect you to eat them later, so we'll say expiration date of October 25th). So I said, "That's only three weeks old, I definitely eating these guys!!" So, I turn the stove on and start cracking the eggs. I crack the first egg and immediately question the yolks texture. I crack the second egg and question why the egg didn't crack right. I grab the rest of the eggs and throw them in the trash. I couldn't do it. Jake was totally in my head. Now, I have to wait until I forget about Jake getting food poisoning from eggs to enjoy them again. I'm not European, I'm not going to go to the supermarket everyday. That's why they invented pasteurization (that begs an important question, why can't the French pasteurize their stuff, their man Louis Pasteur invented the process). So I could enjoy my eggs a month after purchase.
Two asides about eggs.
1. You can get 3 pretty nice meals out of a dozen eggs. At $.31 a pop, that has got to be the deal of the century.
2. At Evan and Scott's bodybuilding competition, they had free magazines. In one of said magazines, there was an advertisement for egg whites. The product was a bucket full of egg whites that you add as a supplement to protein mixes. The worst thing about it, is that the bucket of eggs looked like one those gigantic lotion bottle looking containers. You know the kind they have ketchup in in baseball stadiums. So you basically you be like, "Ok, I need 3 squirts of egg white byproduct in my drink. Delicious." More like disgusting.
Ok, next topic. Geothermal Energy. I recently went to the Net Impact Conference in Nashville (you can Google Net Impact for more info on them), and one of the speakers was this guy who made a documentary (Kilowatt Ours.....get it) on where our energy from. He had this really effective illustration of how when you flip a light switch, you are effectively blowing up a mountain in Appalachia. Now, is that sensationalistic. Yes. Effective. Yes. Anyway, although his film was made at a much lower budget than An Inconvenient Truth**, I liked it more because the entire second half of the film was solutions and I thought that was lacking with Al Gore's film. The solutions were based on how much money one could save. Saving money is always more effective to getting people onboard than trying give people the soft sell. Either way, you're saving the earth.
One of the solutions was geothermal heating, and it showed this man who ran his pipes really deep into the ground to have the earth geothermally heat his water. He saved something like $600 a year doing this (the man probably had a 5,000 square foot house, so why he was worried about the money, I have no idea).
There is another type of energy called wave energy. Wave energy is energy derived from wave motion. In practice this means taking a magnetic and anchoring it to the sea floor. You place this magnet inside a buoy with electric coils inside it. The motion of the ocean (hehe) causes the buoy's electric coils to oscillate up and down along the magnet and creating electricity. Cool.
But, I see a problem with both types of energy. What happens when a large amount of people start using it? Energy is a zero sum gain. If tons of people starting using energy to heat their water, that means their is less geothermal heat to go around. What effect does that have on the earth? In 100 years will people be calling for the end of geothermal energy before its too late. If tons of coastal cities create wave energy parks (groups of these wave energy buoys), the oceans kinetic energy will be turned into cities potential energy. Those waves you see at the beach will begin to become much weaker. In 50 years, will people call for the end of wave energy and the use of oil. It remains to be seen. You do have credit people for trying to find solutions.
Probably the best solution is an epidemic or aliens. I'm kidding......kinda.
Another issue I've been pondering lately is this. Ryan Adams is almost finished with his contractual obligations to Lost Highway records. As such, the rumor is there will be a box set of all his releases. I have half of Ryan Adams releases, and I want the other half. But I don't know what to do. I could buy the rest of them and not have the official box set. Or I could wait, buy the box set, and them have doubles of half his stuff. No good solution. Geez.
Song Recommendation - House By The Sea by Iron & Wine
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Are You Dead or Are You Sleeping?
I sure hope you're dead.
And so Modest Mouse opened their set at The Murat in The Egyptian Room. Ok, I lied. They didn't open the show with Are You Dead or Are You Sleeping, but I just thought that opening would sound so cool. It did. They didn't play Are You Dead until much later in the show when they already had the house good and rocking. They played with a lot of energy and although I could not understand any of Issac Brock lyrics it was still a great show. Man Man opened the show, and can only be described by Sara as what Kurt Vonnegut's band would sound (and look) like. Really bizarre....but entertaining.
I realized once again how much I hate The Egyptian Room as a venue. All the Egyptian decor (The Murat used to be a Masonic Temple) is quite memorable but unfortunately the room has about the same acoustics as a pyramid. Terrible. Plus it's large and flat. Good luck if you can't snag great seats.
As previously discussed, I went daily to Starbucks to get a free iTunes Song of the Day. Finally, after 32 days, the promotion is over and I can go back to leading a normal life. Except I can't. The promotion worked. I keep going back. I genuinely like the experience. All this crap I learn in school about the "Starbucks Experience" is true. It does exist. The people are just so nice. They say "Word" when I comment about the weather. They play good music. You're probably just assuming that it's a caffeine addiction. So what if it was. I'm not Mormon. I don't live by the Word of Wisdom (singular, although there are multiple words). I can be addicted to coffee if I want. Except I'm not. Sometimes I get decaf. Sometimes I get tea. It's not about the caffeine.
Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world (oil is numero uno), and just about every country in the world drinks it (except for China). When Starbucks builds a store, coffee sales at all coffee shops in the area historically have increased by as much as 25%. Starbucks is 25 times largest than the second largest chain (Caribou Coffee). It runs the industry. Since Starbucks buys coffee from all over the world they have been able to mitigate a lot of the risk associated with a catastrophic crop failure in an individual region. I can only see one thing that can stop them. The government. I see it as only a matter of time before the government starts to heavily regulate coffee. How could they not? They regulate the tabacco industry, they regulate the alcohol industry, and they regulate the fast food industry. You think the government will stand by and let by Starbucks build their goal of 20,000 US stores (they currently have 10,500 but less than 10% of the US market) without wanting a piece of the action? How many senators would love to make a name for themselves by attempting to stop this great caffeine dispensing giant? Oh it will happen. It will be epic and it will be nasty. But until then, drink up and be merry.
Song Recommendation - Float On by Modest Mouse
And so Modest Mouse opened their set at The Murat in The Egyptian Room. Ok, I lied. They didn't open the show with Are You Dead or Are You Sleeping, but I just thought that opening would sound so cool. It did. They didn't play Are You Dead until much later in the show when they already had the house good and rocking. They played with a lot of energy and although I could not understand any of Issac Brock lyrics it was still a great show. Man Man opened the show, and can only be described by Sara as what Kurt Vonnegut's band would sound (and look) like. Really bizarre....but entertaining.
I realized once again how much I hate The Egyptian Room as a venue. All the Egyptian decor (The Murat used to be a Masonic Temple) is quite memorable but unfortunately the room has about the same acoustics as a pyramid. Terrible. Plus it's large and flat. Good luck if you can't snag great seats.
As previously discussed, I went daily to Starbucks to get a free iTunes Song of the Day. Finally, after 32 days, the promotion is over and I can go back to leading a normal life. Except I can't. The promotion worked. I keep going back. I genuinely like the experience. All this crap I learn in school about the "Starbucks Experience" is true. It does exist. The people are just so nice. They say "Word" when I comment about the weather. They play good music. You're probably just assuming that it's a caffeine addiction. So what if it was. I'm not Mormon. I don't live by the Word of Wisdom (singular, although there are multiple words). I can be addicted to coffee if I want. Except I'm not. Sometimes I get decaf. Sometimes I get tea. It's not about the caffeine.
Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world (oil is numero uno), and just about every country in the world drinks it (except for China). When Starbucks builds a store, coffee sales at all coffee shops in the area historically have increased by as much as 25%. Starbucks is 25 times largest than the second largest chain (Caribou Coffee). It runs the industry. Since Starbucks buys coffee from all over the world they have been able to mitigate a lot of the risk associated with a catastrophic crop failure in an individual region. I can only see one thing that can stop them. The government. I see it as only a matter of time before the government starts to heavily regulate coffee. How could they not? They regulate the tabacco industry, they regulate the alcohol industry, and they regulate the fast food industry. You think the government will stand by and let by Starbucks build their goal of 20,000 US stores (they currently have 10,500 but less than 10% of the US market) without wanting a piece of the action? How many senators would love to make a name for themselves by attempting to stop this great caffeine dispensing giant? Oh it will happen. It will be epic and it will be nasty. But until then, drink up and be merry.
Song Recommendation - Float On by Modest Mouse
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