There are certain traditions in the holiday season that we all know, love, and celebrate every year.
Whether it be gathering around the table for a feast, watching holiday specials on the TV, or giving gifts until you're deep in credit card debt, we all know certain things happen this time of the year.
I, for one, partook in one of the newer holiday traditions just last night. I got into a fight with a guy at the supermarket parking lot.
Parking lots, and the people and cars that park in them, are a constant annoyance of mine. From the inability to park a car between two perfectly straight lines to improper use of handicapped parking spaces, it's amazing I'm willing to venture forth to a lot at all.
Humans, as a breed, are complete and insensitive idiots when it comes to what they do in parking lots.
First, the facts: I am authorized to park in a handicapped space. Mind you, while I may be in decent physical condition (I could lose a pound or 20, I know), the handicapped permit is for my mother.
She has trouble walking thanks to Diabetic Neuropathy in her feet and Macular Degeneration has taken part of her vision. Between that and the aches and pains that inevitably develop when you reach 78, her doctor signed off on the form that granted her a handicapped permit.
Mind you, I don't take advantage of the permit when I'm alone. But when we go shopping, it does give us a chance to park nearer to the door, so she can just go inside, sit on the bench, and watch folks go past. It's a chance for her to get out of the house, something that doesn't happen too too often these days.
Naturally, this time of year, it's difficult enough to find parking at the store anyway. Thankfully, the permit gives us a decent chance at finding one of those close spots.
However, the remainder of humanity believes that handicapped parking spaces are shopping cart return spaces.
After pulling halfway into the parking space, I had to get out of the car and move one of the carts that some kind soul decided to leave right in my way. Get back in the car, pull in, and straighten it out (so I, at least, will be centered between the lines).
I shut the car off and am getting out to go around the other side and help my mother out when this...gentleman...decided to park his shopping cart in the handicapped space right in front of me.
"Handicapped spaces aren't cart returns, ya know," I tell him in my most polite-yet still annoyed-voice.
He merely smiles and starts to walk away.
"Smile all you want, but a handicapped space still isn't a cart return," I yell out as he goes.
He turns and looks back at me. "You've got two good legs, return it yourself!" was his reply.
"I've got two good legs, but she doesn't, you insensitive jackass!" Unfortunately, he decided to keep walking.
It amazes me to no end the attitude some folks take. Would it kill you to walk an extra twenty feet to return your shopping cart inside the store?
Let's take a couple things into consideration here:
* There are places set aside in nearly every aisle to return your cart.
* No one wants their car ding-ed by a shopping cart.
* If you're close enough to the door, why not return it to the store itself?
These are fairly simple ideas, people.
Think before you act for a change.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
I only call 'em "records".
Originally posted at my old blog. Moved here for archives sake. I've moved a few of these over here. They're dated, but they're still me...
With much thanks and love to my editor for making suggestions.
Music is as essential to my existence as air, food and water.
Today, we pay our final respects to MP3.com
I've got a healthy CD collection at home. Last time I checked, there's close to 300 CDs...with everything from Classical to Pop to Jazz (lots of Jazz), with Country, Blues and a little Hip-Hop thrown in for good measure.
The weekends are constantly filled with music in my home. First thing I do in the morning - even before I'm completely awake - , I fill the CD changer and just let the music fill the house. You could hear anything from Sinatra and the Rat Pack to Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash to Boney James and Rick Braun.
One thing that I love to do is go through record stores...and yeah, I'm old enough to remember records, those wonderful pieces of pressed petroleum. But I admit, I love CD's more than records. They're transportable, they can store more music, and they're shiny too.
But to me, they sound better than MP3's, and that's the crux of this rant.
Recently while browsing through one such nationwide chain store that sells said CDs, a clerk came up to me and asked if I downloaded MP3s. Yes, I have downloaded in the past my fair share of MP3s, but I told him I didn't. I preferred CDs, which sound better.
I do still download the occasional MP3s. It was just easier to tell him this because I had no desire to hear about the latest "MP3 Download Service".
There are times when there's a "hit" song by an artist I normally wouldn't buy, but the tune is catchy, and I'd like a copy of it. (These are rare today, given the poor quality of new artists out there.) More often than not, I'm searching for old songs that I can't find anywhere else, such as John Rowles' "Cheryl Moana Marie" or Tony Harris' "I'll Forever Love You" - songs which few people my age have probably ever heard of.
Recently, Apple has released iTunes for Windows (previously only available for Mac). I did download and install it on my test machine at work However, I doubt I'll use it to purchase my music. The compressed MP3 file just doesn't sound as good to my untrained ear as a CD or it's vinyl predecessor.
iTunes and other of that ilk (Napster 2.0, Microsoft's forthcoming, unnamed service, etc.) are yet another sign of the instant gratification and dumbing down of the world...where we're willing to sacrifice quality for speed.
See, when you "rip" a track from a CD and convert it over to an MP3, you're losing a lot of the original song. Some folks will tell you that it sounds just as good as the original, but it doesn't. Even with the best compression out there, you can't take a 30MB original WAV file and turn it into a 3MB MP3 without losing something.
It's not to say that MP3's didn't have their uses. Suppose you're looking for something new, someone who hasn't made it onto the radio because the corporate suits who control radio don't believe they can make a profit from them - they're not packagable or don't have a "look" that can sell merchandise.
What was the easiest way to find new music like that? The Internet. Download a MP3 of someone new, take a listen, see what you think, and then buy their CD. It's a win-win situation: You find someone new you like and the artist wins because his or her music is getting discovered.
But those new artists, those undiscovered gems, have lost their home. Perhaps the last good place to find these artists, MP3.com, is about to disappear. They've been bought out by CNet, and they plan to turn what was once a wonderful clearinghouse into yet another iTunes/Napster clone. Today, December 2nd, is the last day you'll be able to download music from them.
All that music - all those artists who quite possibly deserve to be heard - will be lost to us. Doesn't matter if they're good or they suck. Some corporation has decided that they don't want us to hear them, so the powers-that-be will delete it, depriving us from ever knowing there might be something better out there.
As for me? You can still find me cruising the record store, trying to find something different, something interesting, some undiscovered treasure waiting to be listened to and enjoyed the way it was meant to be...not compressed down to 128k.
With much thanks and love to my editor for making suggestions.
Music is as essential to my existence as air, food and water.
Today, we pay our final respects to MP3.com
I've got a healthy CD collection at home. Last time I checked, there's close to 300 CDs...with everything from Classical to Pop to Jazz (lots of Jazz), with Country, Blues and a little Hip-Hop thrown in for good measure.
The weekends are constantly filled with music in my home. First thing I do in the morning - even before I'm completely awake - , I fill the CD changer and just let the music fill the house. You could hear anything from Sinatra and the Rat Pack to Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash to Boney James and Rick Braun.
One thing that I love to do is go through record stores...and yeah, I'm old enough to remember records, those wonderful pieces of pressed petroleum. But I admit, I love CD's more than records. They're transportable, they can store more music, and they're shiny too.
But to me, they sound better than MP3's, and that's the crux of this rant.
Recently while browsing through one such nationwide chain store that sells said CDs, a clerk came up to me and asked if I downloaded MP3s. Yes, I have downloaded in the past my fair share of MP3s, but I told him I didn't. I preferred CDs, which sound better.
I do still download the occasional MP3s. It was just easier to tell him this because I had no desire to hear about the latest "MP3 Download Service".
There are times when there's a "hit" song by an artist I normally wouldn't buy, but the tune is catchy, and I'd like a copy of it. (These are rare today, given the poor quality of new artists out there.) More often than not, I'm searching for old songs that I can't find anywhere else, such as John Rowles' "Cheryl Moana Marie" or Tony Harris' "I'll Forever Love You" - songs which few people my age have probably ever heard of.
Recently, Apple has released iTunes for Windows (previously only available for Mac). I did download and install it on my test machine at work However, I doubt I'll use it to purchase my music. The compressed MP3 file just doesn't sound as good to my untrained ear as a CD or it's vinyl predecessor.
iTunes and other of that ilk (Napster 2.0, Microsoft's forthcoming, unnamed service, etc.) are yet another sign of the instant gratification and dumbing down of the world...where we're willing to sacrifice quality for speed.
See, when you "rip" a track from a CD and convert it over to an MP3, you're losing a lot of the original song. Some folks will tell you that it sounds just as good as the original, but it doesn't. Even with the best compression out there, you can't take a 30MB original WAV file and turn it into a 3MB MP3 without losing something.
It's not to say that MP3's didn't have their uses. Suppose you're looking for something new, someone who hasn't made it onto the radio because the corporate suits who control radio don't believe they can make a profit from them - they're not packagable or don't have a "look" that can sell merchandise.
What was the easiest way to find new music like that? The Internet. Download a MP3 of someone new, take a listen, see what you think, and then buy their CD. It's a win-win situation: You find someone new you like and the artist wins because his or her music is getting discovered.
But those new artists, those undiscovered gems, have lost their home. Perhaps the last good place to find these artists, MP3.com, is about to disappear. They've been bought out by CNet, and they plan to turn what was once a wonderful clearinghouse into yet another iTunes/Napster clone. Today, December 2nd, is the last day you'll be able to download music from them.
All that music - all those artists who quite possibly deserve to be heard - will be lost to us. Doesn't matter if they're good or they suck. Some corporation has decided that they don't want us to hear them, so the powers-that-be will delete it, depriving us from ever knowing there might be something better out there.
As for me? You can still find me cruising the record store, trying to find something different, something interesting, some undiscovered treasure waiting to be listened to and enjoyed the way it was meant to be...not compressed down to 128k.
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