Stop good songs from being used on bad commercials!

Actually, let's not restrict this to only bad commercials. I'm tired of seeing some of my favorite songs getting torn apart being used on commercials. Can they not pay a couple extra bucks to pay for someone to make some, oh, original music perhaps?

It's depressing that I'm currently hearing Boston's "More Than A Feeling" in a commercial. It's probably more depressing that some of my favorite Queen songs ("You're My Best Friend", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "I Want It All", and I think even "Play The Game" and "Under Pressure") have been used in commercials.

These commercials really cheapen my experience with the songs. I have decent memories of certain songs. "More Than A Feeling" is a great song to clap along to and sing at the top of your lungs with while driving. I don't want to remember Nestle when I hear it. I don't want to remember Chase when I hear "I Want it All". Or McCain fries when I hear "Crazy Little Thing Called Love".

The bad thing about it all is that it works. These songs that I love listening to are now used against me. Now I remember some product I really have no interest in, but I'm forced, subconsciously, to recall unwanted things.

And then they chop up the songs to fit the commercial. Argh. We need a petition. Or talented musicians. Then again, today's musicians can't make music without taking from songs already popularized, so that may get us nowhere. I'm disappointed with today's talent in music overall.

Do today's professional sports breed mediocrity?

Think quickly about your favorite sport. I'm sure you can easily think of one team that is a perpetual basement dweller. For example, the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays are constantly in the bottom of the league (MLB). I was a bit surprised to see their current record standing at 17-15.

Some may say that it's up to the owners and general managers to provide their cities with competitive teams. If they were good businessmen and cared about their team and their sport, they would do what it takes to create a successful and profitable team.

I'm almost of the mind that it has more to do with the size of the leagues. The NFL has the most teams (32). They're probably best able to support their teams, all in the US, due to the way the American public devours that sport. Many people live, eat, and breathe football. The one thing I think that supports that sport is the length of the season, being just four months for the regular season, the playoffs taking another month. Because watchers have to wait more than half the year for the next game, excitement really builds up over that time.

All the other major leagues (NBA, MLB, and NHL) all have 30 teams each. Baseball probably is the next most popular sport, though its interest is waning in fringe fans. Issues with steroids and other drugs as well as the lack of respect, for lack of a better term, for records have dulled the sport's image. Baseball is very much a numbers game. People recognize the numbers 755, 61, 40/40, etc. without much thought. But it has its fair share of terrible teams. Colorado had a couple good seasons, and now, for the most part, it's a pretty mediocre team. The Washington Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) are starting quite blandly once again, even with the brand new stadium they're playing in.

I don't follow basketball hardly at all, so any comment about them may be mere speculation on my part, but when was the last time the Clippers had a decent season? I remember thinking in the mid 90's that that team was a constant bottom place team.

The NHL is the sport I follow most. I really get into the excitement of it all, and now that my beloved Penguins are flying through the playoffs, I'm loving every minute of it. But, there are a few teams that could do with a better team. The St. Louis Blues have been pretty bad for a while, even though about fifteen years ago they were a decent team. I always thought of the Islanders as being a pretty lousy team, though at times they do show some flashes of inspiration. And for a league that glorifies its history of the "Original 6", the league sure did expand extremely quickly

Over four major sports, there are 122 teams across the continental 48 states and southern Canada. I think the NFL would do fine as they are. I don't know about how well the NBA's teams are doing, so I can't guess what would be a decent solution for them. The MLB and NHL probably would do fine, if not better, if they reduced their size down to about 24 teams or so. Better talent per team, better support per team by the fans, less travel, better rivalries, and hopefully fewer perpetually terrible teams.

But I'm no commissioner.

Spacejock Software and writing tools

I've been writing my current book using yWriter, a handy program that helps organize chapters, scenes, notes, etc. Very simple to use and a fairly lightweight program that won't slow your computer down. The greatest part would most likely have to be the cost: free. Can't complain.

In fact, all the programs on the Spacejock Software website are easy to use, easy on your computer system's resources, and are free.

You may also want to check out yBook, a program designed to help you view ebooks in a friendlier format.

There's a bunch of other programs that will help everyday life, such as a program that organizes your creative writings and their submissions to publishers, one that organizes your book collection, and one that acts as a timer for anything you wish.

Spacejock also suggests that authors use an outlining/mind map program such as FreeMind. I've attempted to use the program with no success. Unfortunately it continuously froze my computer, even with updating Java. I searched for another program to use and will try out ThinkGraph. It appears to be a decent program, and so far I haven't had any problems running it. It may not have the polish that FreeMind has, but it may work for the time being. I'd like to try FreeMind out at another time to see if it is a decent program, but for the time being, I'll organize my thoughts for my works with ThinkGraph.

So, check out yWriter and either FreeMind or ThinkGraph. It may just help you become a better writer.

Nearly lost everything

So, recently, my hard drive took a dump. I have two hard drives on my system, one to run Windows, and the other one to store various files. Well, the Windows drive pretty much died. It would load up to the desktop, but if you try to do anything at all, the system slowed to a screeching halt.

Unfortunately, my book was on that drive. Fortunately, the drive didn't die completely. I installed Windows on another partition and was able to access and copy my information onto the other drive. So, crisis averted.

Because of this, I had to dig through my files to reinstall stuff and clear up some space I wasn't expecting to need. In the process, I noticed that I had written a couple starters for stories. I think that for the most part they are quite well done and have a good hook to them. I just need to fill out the stories. Too bad I had forgotten all about them. I read one and didn't even think I was the one that wrote it. Maybe I'll work on them at a later time.

As for my current book, I think I've finished a very rough version of the first chapter. I'll definitely need to spend some time going over it and polishing it up. It's decent, though I don't think it's nearly as catchy as it is in my mind. I'll have to work on that, but I don't think it'll be that difficult, really. The story so far is rough enough that adding descriptive and interesting elements should be fairly easy going.

But we'll see.

Schrodinger's Cat

I was disappointed to find out recently that one of my favorite small Austin groups disbanded. I had gone to see Schrodinger's Cat twice when I was still in school in Austin. The first time was in the fall semester of 2000, and I think the second time was the fall semester in 2002.

Schrodinger's Cat was an a capella group, specializing in "big beat". What that means, essentially, is that they use their bodies in a more physical manner to produce sounds, not just vocally. So, they would beat on their chests, stomp on the ground, vocalize trumpets, etc. Very cool sound.

They usually covered a lot of popular songs, but they did a few of their own songs as well.

I found out that they had broken up in 2005. John Pointer (the founder)'s house had burned down, destroying many things that the group had relied on, with sound equipment, stomp boxes, and their CDs burning up.

It saddens my heart, but I'm hoping that maybe one day he'll get a group together again. I loved their sound and thought they had tremendous potential. They had toured Japan and was universally loved. I think that a dedicated group of listeners would support them stateside also.

And now, on to more personal issues.

I'm slowly but surely continuing with my first chapter of my story. I think I'm writing just off the pace which I was writing for NaNoWriMo, which was at about 1500 words a day. Once all is said and done, I think this chapter will be around 10,000 words, which is about 1/5 of what I had to write for NaNoWriMo (50,000 words for the month). It kind of makes me happy that I'm able to fit that much in, but I hope I'm able to keep up that pace.

I need to do some hardcore editing, which is kind of the plan, really. I just need to get everything down in text first, then clean up or add to what I had already put down. If I edit along the way, I'm screwed. It'll take even longer than what I'm at right now. And that just won't cut it.

It is my goal to have a workable first chapter by the middle of next week. We'll see how that goes.