The Day the Muzak Died?

I'm not sure how it happened, but I found out about real news via the Onion, which noted that the Muzak company (elevator and hold music) filed for bankruptcy.  Turns out it's true, but that's not the point.

What got me is that I had almost forgotten about the term "elevator music", which maybe is their problem.  I work in a lot of different places these days, and I can't think of the last time I rode an elevator that was playing music.  Now, maybe I'm just not hanging around the classiest places, but I remember back when most public elevators in businesses had heart-stoppingly boring music playing, and you'd think that I'd stumble on it now and then if it was still popular.  It's almost the same thing with hold music.  These days, if there is anything playing at all, it's either some radio station that's local to the business's call center or propaganda from the business itself.  Usually, though, it's just stone cold silence, often making me think I've been disconnected.  (Since I'm usually on a cell phone these days, I don't even expect a dial tone to clue me in.)  Anyway, has this stuff largely disappeared, or am I just frequenting the wrong kind of establishments?

Stupid music in my head

On the road again,
Wish I wasn't on the road again,
Rather be back home with my kids and my best friend,
Wish I wasn't on the road again.

Yeah, I'm on the road working again. It's the first time since D Money was born, so it's an experiment for all of us. I know it's necessary, at least for now, but I still feel like I'm ditching the fam'. I did the best I could for Franny. My folks will be there part of the time, and her folks part of the time, but she'll still have a couple days by herself with two little tyrants demanding the world. Good luck, F. I wish I was there to help you.

I'm back in Montana this time. I've made this trip a few times, but the last was February. It occurred to me maybe half way here that I took off without a map and without looking up any directions. Apparently I've been here enough to find it familiar. I must have been right since I didn't get lost.

The trip to Missoula took about nine hours, and at least it was decent weather. I was worried about 4th of July Pass in Idaho, since I've found poor road conditions there in the past, but all was clear yesterday, so it was pretty smooth. Today I continued on to Bozeman over the Continental Divide. 6,380 feet up if you're interested. The weather wasn't so hot although it certainly could have been worse. It sleeted part of time and I'm sure the pass is pretty icy at night. There's melting snow all day and 20's at night, so I'm sure it gets slick. I guess it's supposed to get more wintery later this week. It is Montana, I suppose.

I did find that the last hour or two in the dark last night was a lot less fun. I knew I had been driving too long when I realized the I was emphatically (and loudly) singing that I am indeed a redneck woman. I was half right anyway. Actually, although I don't even know any Tanya Tucker songs (much less all the words), and I'm hardly the girl next door in my neck of the woods, the song wasn't entirely wrong. I would rather drink beer all night than swig that sweet champagne. I definitely ain't no high class broad. My Christmas lights weren't on the front poor all year, but they did make it to March or April. And most importantly, I can certainly buy that same damn thing on a Wal*Mart shelf half price. Hell Yeah.

It looks like I should drive less and sleep more. Sounds like a plan. Good night.

True Portland Kid

Sitting down for dinner, I grabbed one of my favorite beverages, the wonderful juice of the barley. Thanks to fatherhood, that happens far too rarely these days, so I enjoy one when I can. Anyway, the Mizz sees the bottle and pipes in with, "Daddy sing the beer song???" Apparently I quote Homer Simpson more frequently than Julie Andrews.

In case you're unfamiliar, here is the beer song. I can't vouch for the exact right words, but this is the version that the Mizz hears.

Dough, the stuff that buys me beer,
Ray, the guys who sells me beer,
Me, the guy who drinks the beer,
Far, a long way from my beer,
So, I'll have another beer,
La, la la la la la beer,
Tea, no thanks, I'll have a beer,
And that brings us back to, DOH!

Another Wedding Video (for starters)

After the wedding videos from the other day, I was amused to stumble on this one too:



I was ready to ignore that video until moments later, when I stumbled on the next one. I should be embarrassed about it, but I have a tad bit of unfortunate history with the song, so I just can't help myself. Sad. Very sad... (Tutu should probably not play any more of these. Just sayin'.)



I had no idea how much YouTubers (iPotatoes?) liked this song. Plus they have a lot of time on their hands. There are a ton of these remixes/homages.



That ought to be enough, but if for some reason you need it, here's the original. Does anybody remember when this video was considered too racy for MTV? A little before hardcore gangsta rap and endless spring break specials.



I wonder if I'll ever develop a sense of good taste???

Montana notes

Well, I made it back to civilization, at least compared to Montana. No offense, but there're more people in Portland than in the entire state of Montana. The biggest city in Montana (Billings, I think) still doesn't even have 100,000 people. (I sure hope nobody from Chicago or New York reads this and decides to start spouting statistics at me. I'm guessing that New York probably has more people than the whole Northwest. And don't even get me started on Tokyo and Mumbai and whatnot.)

I actually got back a day earlier than I expected. One of our customers declined service, so I could speed things up a little bit. They never said it explicitly, but I got the idea that money was tight, so they decided to forgo calibration this year. I'm not sure that's such a great plan. It's a little like deciding to do oil changes every 10,000 miles to save a few bucks. You'll probably still spend the money later and then some. It worked out for me though, so whatever.

I make a lot of noise, but I actually like travelling to Montana as far as travelling for work goes. People are friendly. The scenery is beautiful. This time around, there was some winter weather, but nothing that slowed me down. Lots of the rivers and lakes were frozen over, which is always cool. Lots of miles though. I think I put on about 2,400 miles in two weeks and stayed in 8 hotels, which is at least 6 too many. I have to give a shout out to La Quinta Inns though. Their rates are usually decent ($49.00 in Missoula for a single king room), the rooms are equipped well enough, and the beds I've had have always been extremely soft, which is a nice change from the ultra-firm plywood beds of the Super 8's and such.

I did have to be amused with Rock Creek, a little town near Missoula. Much of Montana is ranch land. Part of beef ranching is the annual activity of turning bulls into steers. Long story short -- you drive east from Missoula and see billboards for the Rock Creek Testicle Festival. That's all I'm about to say about that. I'll let the fine folks at TestyFesty.com deal with any further details.

On the way home, I happened to catch a radio story about a barge that hit and damaged the locks at the John Day Dam on the Columbia River last Friday. This is somewhat interesting in its own right, but it struck me because I was driving by the dam when I heard to story not too long after it happened. The lock was actually out of service for a few days, but the Corps of Engineers has since installed a temporary gate to restore passage to vital river traffic. The broken gate is floating on a barge until they can figure out how to make a permanent repair.

If this post sounds little random, it's because it's taken me almost a week to write in tiny bursts. I came back home to a sick toddler and last night was the first real good night's sleep this house has seen since I came home. Fun.

In penance for taking so stinking long, here're some interesting/funny videos that are not remotely related to Montana.

Hyperactive Beatbox

Just check this dude out.

What song is this?

A rousing round of Guess the Backward Song...

[Addendum 12/29/07: Sorry if you haven't been able to see this video. I used the new YouTube feature to post a video directly into a blog. It worked right after I did it, but apparently something changed since then and the video stopped showing. I'm trying again a different way. Better luck this time, I hope.]

Movie review: Ray

I finally got a chance to see Ray yesterday. It was an excellent portrayal of the first few decades of the life of Ray Charles. By the time I ever heard of him, he was already an old guy who had already made much of the music he was ever going to make. This film was a very in-depth, and from what I hear, rather accurate portrayal of his rise to fame and fortune. I highly recommend it for anyone remotely interested in him.

Jamie Foxx did a wonderful job as Ray. According to the DVD extras, he really went the extra mile to ensure accuracy. He is apparently trained as a classical pianist and learned all of the music so he is actually playing in the movie. As an added twist, he wore prosthetics over his eyes which effectively made him blind for 14 hours a day during shooting. So not only did he really have to learn to move around as a blind man, he learned to play the music without seeing anything. Ray Charles had 15 or 20 years to get good at it and another 40 to perfect it. Jamie Foxx did at least a portion of it in maybe a year.

The version I saw was extended beyond the theatrical release. However, it was released on the same DVD, so you choose when you start the movie which version you want to see, and as it turns out, there is a disconcerting pause each time you see an extra scene. It's even more unnerving since the extra scenes are what are listed in the 'deleted scenes' on the DVD, so you are seeing things that might not match in timing, lighting, etc.. There's even one that has several versions of the same scene and comes across more like a blooper reel. Although the extra scenes made for a somewhat jarring viewing, I did enjoy the extended musical numbers. The movie was somewhat disjointed for me anyway, since due the Mizz's short nap, I ended up seeing the movie in two halves anyway, separated by several hours. If all the scenes didn't work together just so, it wasn't really my worst problem.

[Incidentally, this movie must have made an impact on me, as I had a dream that I was going blind last night. It was obvious where it came from, as it very much mirrored the scenes in the movie depicting the onset of Ray's blindness. My chief concern seemed to be that I could no longer drive myself around. However, unlike Ray, my oncoming blindness was cured by putting in new contacts. I was happy that I could drive again. I can't decide if I was really a medical mystery and the doctors thought I was going blind too, or if I was just an idiot who forgot to put in his contacts. Profound, huh?]

Things are looking up. No, for real this time.

I thought I was good to go after Sunday. Wrong. I woke up sick again Monday morning. What a crock. I spent all but an hour Sunday night not being able to sleep and then spent most of the day in bed. I was a bit better by last night though, and all in all, the day wasn't as miserable as Friday. Anyway, I think I really am on the mend today. I made it to work today anyway if that means anything. From what I hear, there's some serious crud making the rounds, so maybe it's not just our house. We only have about a dozen people in our company and we had three of us our for two days each last week and another out yesterday and today. And this afternoon, my boss said he wasn't feeling so hot either, which means his drive to California tomorrow ought to be a joy. Good luck George.

The only good thing I see about all this is that the lower caffeine intake seems to be sticking. I survived the whole day, including 3 hours driving, on only a cup of tea this morning. Silver lining.

On a lighter note, I realized the other day that I have been completely overtaken by nursery rhymes. When the Mizz was little, I couldn't hear a lot of the rhymes with out thinking of either Ice Cube's "A Gangsta's Fairytale" or the raunchy poetry of Andrew Dice Clay. Per Ice Cube, "There was an old lady who lived in a shoe; sold dope out the front, out the back marijuana grew; for the man who was really important; who lived down the street in a Air Jordan." I'm not about to write anything by Andrew Dice Clay. Mom would have a heart attack. Anyway, every time I heard a nursery rhyme, I heard something similar from one of them in my head. Actually, when the Mizz was just tiny, I even sang the other versions to him sometimes. He didn't care, and I had more fun that way. However, I realized the other day as Franny and I were singing a rousing duet of Twinkle, Twinkle, Traffic Light (same tune, different words) that I don't get those thoughts anymore. Now, instead, I hear nursery rhymes that won't leave me alone when I'm trying to go to sleep. At least I'm not Franny. She has to endure the Mizz's CD's on the way to and from work everyday. Poor woman.

Lately...

This weekend started off pretty well. We drove up to Seattle for the Mizz's cousin J's 1st birthday party. There were maybe 6 kids and 20-some adults. Lots of food and drinks and birthday cake, although J was not impressed. He especially didn't understand when the whole room started singing the same song at him. I can see how that might be weird.

We stayed overnight in the city and toured the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park Sunday morning with J and the Mizz. They were mainly interested in throwing rocks into the water. Dad and I had fun throwing rocks too, but we were also aware of some art. It's actually pretty cool. They've built it up so it bridges over a street and a set of railroad tracks and runs along Puget Sound for quite a way.

We enjoyed the time we got spend with my sister and her husband (and J) since we rarely get to see them when it's not at a huge gathering with lots going on or when one of us is in a hurry to get somewhere. And Mizz got to play with his cousin, and more importantly, all of his cousin's toys, many of which are different than his own. Which is way cool.

The ride home became quite a bummer. All three of us had started feeling a little crappy through the weekend, but Franny got pretty sick on the ride home. We had to stop several times while she desecrated the various trees of the great state of Washington with what was left of dinner. I felt pretty bad for her, but in the middle of nowhere, what can you do?

Monday, we all took a sick day. Franny was down for the count, and Mizz had a miserable cold. I wasn't exactly in top form, and although if it was just me, I probably would have gone to work anyway feeling terrible, I was happy to take the day off to babysit. Franny was careful to note that it's not babysitting when it's your own kid, but when both of you aren't doing well, it can feel that way.

Franny still wasn't feeling so well today, but she was improved, so I did make it back to work. Judging by the state of the house this evening, it wasn't such a good day -- not for her at least. It looks like Mizz had the run of the place. He even stuffed the first wrong thing in the VCR this morning. Luckily it was a CD and not a PBJ sandwich. The VCR survived just fine, but the CD is pretty scratched.

It was a good one too. Shishskabob by Fighting Gravity, which has the background music from the underground hit video, Sweeper of Skaville. Luckily, I had already ripped (or per the RIAA, "pirated") it, so I still have the music. Which is cool, as this is one of the local bands from when I was in college, so there're some memories there, and unlike The Dave Matthews Band (maybe the biggest thing to come out of Charlottesville since me), I don't run across Fighting Gravity very often.