typewriter.blogsome.com

over the holidays I spent some time getting acquainted with Rock Band 1 & 2!
I LOVE THAT GAME!!

I think the drums are my favourite. Vocals are fun too, but I don’t even know a third of the songs. It’s a shame there aren’t more from the 90s and 00s. Though, I was pleased to see Paramore and Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco on there!
I think we played the 2 Paramore songs like 3 times each. We also did Roxanne a couple times. hilariousness.

I think Rock Band 3 will be great!

unrelated….
Check out these coasters!
Bamboo Type Coasters:


by acd (Available at the Supermarket)
[via]

Recycled Rubber Coasters:

Made of recycled tires!
at Elsewares
[via]

Kinoo Kiwi Coasters:

eee! kiwis!!
Available at EndemicWorld.com
[via]

Pixel Coasters:

Fun!
At the 25togo Design Store
[via]

Mondays are definitely more fun when I don’t have to go to work!

Around noon today I headed off to the Annex for a yarn destash!

I picked this up:

for $2.00!!!

Next I stopped by my local library and acquired one of these:

And used it to borrow this:

It’s a documentary about life in a women’s prison. Should be interesting… it’s from 2006 I think.

It was so weird to be in a library. I haven’t been to a non-university library in ages! As I was walking around the place I kept having flashbacks to the days when I used to hangout at the Missisauga Public Library. …sit in a particular spot and read books while waiting to be picked up…

oh, here’s something unrelated:
Paolo Nutini singing “Jenny don’t be hasty”
he’s different. …

I like those Border sessions.

speaking of music, I recently enabled the ‘Genius’ feature on my iTunes account and i LOOOOVE it!
I was pretty skeptical but it really does appear to be genius!

What it is, is basically you click a song and it automatically creates a playlist of similar types of music.

so I tested it out on my iPod with the song “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg’ by the Temptations.
The genius playlist contained songs by Stevie Wonder, The Chi-Lites, The Spinners, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Rufus Thomas etc.
I was super surprised though that an Amy Winehouse song was included! It was the song ‘Tears Dry on Their Own” which has background beats from the song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and Gloria Gaynor’s “You’re all I Need”.

okay, so I tried out Genius again with the song “Breathe” by Alexi Murdoch.
The resulting playlist included:
Joshua Radin
Minus the Bear
Ben Taylor
Ingrid Michaelson
Kate Havnevik
Matt Costa
Death Cab for Cutie
Adele
Matt Nathanson
Glen Hansard
John Mayer ..etc

perfect right?!

I’ve added a few new sites to my bloglines account.

The most recent is:

Cool Podcasts: Finding the Best Podcasts for you
url: http://coolpodcasts.wordpress.com/

It’s great! There are tons of podcasts listed and they provide a mini bio of each! I’m currently downloading the “That’s Good to Know” podcast which was mentioned on the site.

(speaking of podcasts… I just watched Brigitte Dale’s podcast. Cracked.Me.Up. For some reason the podcast didn’t seem to want to transfer to my iPod, but I’m hoping it’ll work itself out!)

one of my Christmas gifts was a Starbucks-brand date book/ journal. It looks like this:

There are coffee beans on the cover!!

inside:

I think it’s a sign that I should get a espresso machine. (hah!)

Anyways, I’m not a huge “date book” type person (I prefer to remember dates through memory. …this prevents making plans a long time in advance … though, I did forget one gathering once, which I still feel bad about.
So I’m thinking of reading that gratitude book and using the journal as a gratitude journal! I think you write down 3 things you’re grateful for each day.

If I decide to start it I’ll start Jan 1st.

Speaking of New Years, I’ve been thinking of making some resolutions this year!
last year I made some goals, which I kinda like better than “resolutions”…

I’ve met a few of the 2008 goals… one was to move out to my own place and have my own furniture and hang my own artwork on the walls!

i think one of my goals for 2009 should be to cook more of my own meals…from scratch.
and actually use the food that I buy. (instead of letting it expire.)
oh! another one should be to do more with limes! Whether it’s eating/drinking/cooking with them, or painting them, or smelling them… I want more limes in my life. (hah!)

oh yes, I wanted to mention that the Starbucks journal has this tagline on it:
“sip. talk. write. read. eat. listen. be.”

I like that.

It’s great in French too actually:
sirotez. parlez. écrivez. lisez. mangez. écoutez. vivez.”

one more thing…
I just saw this on Design Milk:
The necklace seen here:

Is called “Clear Drop of Water” and 3€ from each sale goes to Unicef’s clean water program!
more info is on the designer (Karl-Oskar)’s website.

Here’s a blurb from the welcome page:
“My work is based on three words: Hand - Mind - Heart which represents good craftmanship, lateral/vertical thinking, and emotional durable design.”

ps - have I mentioned the end of my iPod story?
basically, I went to get the iPod fixed, and the repair store fixed it for free!! And I was ecstatic!! And then I went home and it malfunctioned again. So I went out and bought and iPod Touch. And I like my iPod Touch. I’ve named it Sam.
I did feel silly buying another iPod product after having my iPod break after 54 weeks. But oh well…

This song is in my head: WinterSong by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

I was listening to it on Sam tonight.
(Sam is my new iPod Touch.) (eee!!!)

Here’s a ‘in the studio’ video of the song:

I recently added blogTO to my bloglines account.
It’s uber interesting!

In a recent entry a commenter described eggs as chicken menstruation.
yummy.

another recent tidbit coming out of the blog, is that a nice T.O citizen (Brian Gilham) has made the TTC updates into a twitter account!
Super!

noooooooooooo

heh, oh well.

related links:
- short article from 2006: “Apple should worry more about the failure rate of iPods”
(the article stated that iPods are expected to last 4 years. And the ‘weakest link’ of iPods are their hard drives.)
- another short article from 2006: “Apple: iPods built to last 4 years”
This article argues that the iPod failure rate is comparable to other electronics, and isn’t such a big deal…
- article from late 2007: “The iPod Classic failure rate is more than double the Nano’s.”
This article seems to fall in line with the one above, since iPod Classics have a larger hard drive than the Nanos. (or is it ‘Nanoes’?

Unrelated link:
A poem by Rafael Casal performed at Def Poetry Jam: Season 4 (2004). I like him. He’s very passionate.

So the question is, what should my next mp3 player be?
Apparently I have an issue with hard drives…. the mp3 player I had before the iPod also died from hard drive failure. So I’m wondering if it’s something that I’m doing, or is it just that I use my mp3 players every day for hours on end?
(speaking of which, I was iPod-less on Friday at work and I was DYING. Seriously. I dunno how people work there without music.)

I’m leaning towards the iPod Touch.
(I know! another iPod!! Why would I do that?!)
1. I like the iTunes store. well, I like how so many different options are available in one place.
2. Wifi connection!!
3. Maybe the Touch will last longer than a year b/c of the smaller hard drive!
-1. Another iPod… really?
-2. eight gigs is kinda small… especially including podcasts and videos!

I don’t have to make a decision yet….There’s an iPod repair shop within walking distance from my place! (yay! midtown-living wins again!!)

so I’m still dealing with my iPod….
I searched around and came up with a “solution”…
long story short, I am going to press the dreaded ‘restore’ button and start from scratch.

I have about 20ish gigs of stuff on my computer, so I’ll end up losing 27 gigs…
that is, if the reformatting works.

I have a feeling the hard drive is toast.
(“toast. toast.” … remember that scene in Mission Impossible 1?

This message just popped up:

as I read it, I heard “Mwa ha ha ha ha!” in the background…

I’ve decided to take a break from dealing with this whole iPod fiasco.
(turns out, my files are still on the iPod! (yay!) just, it doesn’t recognize that the files are still there. hmmm…)

Anyways, I just watched the video for Sam Sparro’s song “Black and Gold”

Top hats!!

hehe, top hat dancing!

‘cause if you’re not really here, I don’t want to be either. I want to be next to you. black and gold. black and gold’

purging everything and starting anew is good for the soul.
…right?

I just broke/erased my iPod.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

there goes 60ish Gigs of music and podcasts and TV shows …

I haven’t given up hope yet though! I’m gonna try and restore it tonight when I get home!
if that doesn’t work I’ll have to reload all my CDs… ugh.