’80s overdose

Maybe it’s because I’ve watched Time-Life’s Classic Soft Rock Collection infomercial one too many times, but when I was leaving for work today, Christopher Cross‘s “Ride Like the Wind” popped into my head, complete with backing vocals by Michael McDonald (“what a fool believes…“).

So I got curious and did a Google search on “ride like the wind michael mcdonald”. And the third hit was an SCTV parody of Michael McDonald singing those lyrics (“such a long way to goooooooooooo…”) posted on YouTube. Really funny, and absolutely hilarious if you know who Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald are. If you don’t, well, you didn’t listen to enough yacht rock as a kid, did you?

And then to top it off, this week VH1 is counting down the 100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s. Take my breath away…

More music fun

When I was in elementary and middle school, I listened to mostly adult contemporary songs (i.e., “soft rock”), mostly because I didn’t know any better. So watching the infomercial for Time-Life’s Classic Soft Rock collection was particularly trippy, because they showed that these songs were sung by real people! With bad hair and funny clothes! I recognized almost every song, but less than half the singers. I also learned some surprising facts (Lotta Love was originally by Neil Young?).

The (not-so-latest) hits

Every once in a while, I’ll hear a song that catches my attention, and then I can’t resist going online to do some research. Like when I first heard Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” and then finding out a few weeks later it was built around a sample of the 1971 hit “Are You My Woman?“ by the Chi-Lites. Or when I heard the background music to a Lincoln car commercial about 4 years ago and discovered it was a song called “Get A Move On” by Mr. Scruff, who sampled “Bird’s Lament (In Memory of Charlie Parker)” by Moondog. Or just recently, when I dug into Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and read that they sampled “Nel Cimitero Di Tucson” by Gianfranco Reverberi, from the soundtrack of a 1968 Italian cowboy movie!

But of course, no one can beat Weird Al. His latest triumph: turning Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’” into “White and Nerdy” After more than two decades, he has not lost his touch.

Thoughts on Flickr

A few observations about my experience with Flickr:

  • Ever since I’ve been uploading my photos to Flickr in June, I’ve blogged a lot less often. I guess I can only devote so much attention to any online activity.
  • Out of the 21 people who list me as a contact, I don’t know 1/3 of them. It’s flattering, but also a little eerie.
  • It also took a while to get used to random people leaving comments and marking my photos as their favorites.
  • But those things keep encouraging me to take and post more and more photos, since I know someone besides me appreciates them.
  • There might be other online photo albums that have certain features that are better, but one of the biggest reasons I stay on Flickr is network effects — my friends are also on Flickr.

A relaxing weekend… sort of

This is the first weekend in over a month I’ve stayed at home. Last month, Matt and Laurel visited over two weekends. The week after was Ben and Judy’s wedding over Labor Day. Three days later, I flew to New York for Sebastian and Carine’s wedding. Then a week after that, I flew to Boston for a company workshop, and while I was there, to visit Howard and give a talk at MIT. Whew! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed each weekend, but I needed a break.

Too bad I have to work on two papers that I’m submitting to CHI this Friday…

Walking while working

Soon after I started working, I noticed I was even less physically active than as a computer science grad student (which is saying something), and I’ve dreamt of putting a treadmill in my office and walking while I worked.

Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one with this brilliant idea: Dr. James Levine at the Mayo Clinic and his team have created a workstation combining a treadmill, desk, and computer. At 1 mph, it’s not enough to break a sweat, but it is enough to burn an extra 100 calories an hour, or, at 10 hours per day, more than 50 pounds a year.

IBM Software product names getting spiffier

I’ve blogged previously about IBM software getting snappier names (e.g., Sametime->”Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing”->Sametime). Looks like this philosophy is slowly spreading. For example, take a look at this name evolution:

It also shows a renewed emphasis on the Lotus brand, a promising sign.