Noah On

WRITE YOUR OWN DAMN BLOG

Noah — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:36:03 +0000

My wife was demanding a new post.

Unpopular Popular Artists

Noah — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:08:26 +0000

People under 30 buy a lot of music, and music is closely tracked, that means there are GREAT statistics available for who buys what music and how much of what music is sold etc. You see I have this problem with people. They like to pretend they’re too cool for popular music. So take a look down this list and as you scroll along think about how many of these bands have something you like listening to, at least once in a while but you probably wouldn’t mention in a list artists you like.

ABBA
AC/DC
Ace of Base
Aerosmith
Barbra Streisand
Barry Manilow
Beach Boys, The
Beatles, The
Bee Gees
Billy Joel
Bob Dylan
Bob Marley
Bob Seger
Bon Jovi
Boney M.
Boyz II Men
Brooks & Dunn
Bryan Adams
Carlos Santana
Carpenters, The
Celine Dion
Cher
Chicago
Creed
Cure, The
Dave Matthews Band
Deep Purple
Def Leppard
Dire Straits
Doors, The
Drifters, The
Eagles, The
Earth, Wind & Fire
Elton John
Elvis Presley
Eminem
Engelbert Humperdinck
Enya
Eric Clapton
Frank Sinatra
Genesis
Greatful Dead, The
Green Day
Guns N’ Roses
Iron Maiden
James Taylor
Janet Jackson
Jefferson Airplane
Jethro Tull
Jimi Hendrix
John Denver
John Mellencamp
Johnny Cash
Justin Timberlake
KC and the Sunshine Band
Kenny G
Kenny Rogers
Kiss
Kylie Minogue
Led Zeppelin
Linda Ronstadt
Linkin Park
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Madonna
Mannheim Steamroller
Meat Loaf
Metallica
Michael Bolton
Michael Jackson
Neil Diamond
Neil Young
Nirvana
Oasis
Pearl Jam
Phil Collins
Pink Floyd
Police, The
Queen
R. Kelly
R.E.M.
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rod Stewart
Rolling Stones, The
Roxette
Sting
Stone Temple Pilots
TLC
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
U2
No seriously, U2, admit you like them.
Van Halen
Whitney Houston
Who, The
Yes

You see, forgot that you like those bands didn’t you? How many did you say “Man I’d never tell my friends I like that song by that artist!” Now go buy some of their music and stop pretending you only like indie bands.

Getting a Better Shave for Less Money.

Noah — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:10:29 +0000

I’ve decided those fancy five blade razors are a waste of money. I’ve never been super happy with how they work, although shaving with one is fast, I find I still get a considerably amount of ingrown hair. But they’re also ~$18 for 6, that makes them $3 each and since each one lasts only 3 days for me before it becomes unacceptably dull that means I’m spending $1/day for the razor alone. Never mind pre-shave, shaving soap or cream, brush, aftershave or whatever else. However the typical two blade swivel head disposable razor is $3 for 10 razors, and each lasts one day, seriously don’t push. Still, that’s only $0.33 for the blade. I’ve found the shave is every bit as good, and maybe better. That said it could be that I’m more willing to do it because I know I’m not using up such an expensive blade as with the five blade system.

As a side note, I’ve also switched to using a brush to apply my shaving cream, I tried shaving soap with it but it was a lot of work and the results weren’t great. So now I spray foam into the brush and work it in. This has two advantages, one the brush is excellent at helping the little hairs to stand up in the foam, rather than be smoothed down by the hand, and two it means I don’t have to get shaving cream on my hands.

I’ve also tried a number of foams, gels, soaps and creams and have found Barbasol’s Beard Buster is an excellent product at half the price of some of the others. Although I’ve not been able to find a quality English soap to try, just the cheap $3/bar type. I have had the “freshly stropped straight razor with expensive soap preformed by a barber” shave before, and it’s spectacular. However that route is time consuming and expensive.

If you know me well you may say “But Noah, you’re not a well shaved man, and you have red bumps and pimple!”, and that’s true, but you should see what happened before I got this under control, now I get maybe 4 ingrown hairs when I shave, I used to get 50 or more when using an electric razor and when just using a 5 blade razor with foam I’d get 10 or so.

Swift Merciless Justice

Noah — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:42:01 +0000

Some little CENSORED almost ran me over in the parking lot on my way into work today. You know the kind of kid who drives a CENSORED forest green 1996 Cavalier with a back seat full of garbage? You know ‘em they wear white hoodies and baggy pants with chains. Well, after he almost killed me he whipped into a parking stall, two actually because he parked over the line, and then went into the school without buying a pass. So when I got up stairs I called security and get him ticketed.

So I was feeling pretty great about this, then it got even better. I was informed that the tickets that get handed out here have the force or normal municipal tickets, and that they are $65 instead of $35. Aww shucks, I bet he needed that money for smokes too.

Reducing Posting for Now

Noah — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:21:10 +0000

I use my blog both as a way to spread information to other people that might be of interest to them, and to catalog things for myself; eg. links I may want to find later, but don’t want to bookmark, or ideas I might forget if I don’t write down.

However, I’ve found that Wordpress is not adequate for where I want to take my public writing in the future, and since I can’t find a decent package, even a Django project to start with. So I will be writing my own. I hate re-inventing the wheel, but it just seems nothing has what I want.

That said, I don’t want to invest more effort in trying to make this work when that time can be spent working on something better.

New York’s Abandoned, Beautiful Architecture

Noah — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:35:12 +0000

They might be a little creepy, but I’d like to have seen them in their hay day
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/galleries/new_york_institutions_uncovered/new_york_institutions_uncovered.html

Ed’s Law

Noah — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:53:42 +0000

Any problem can be reduced to an IT problem.

Fifty Attractive Church Websites

Noah — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:44:13 +0000

Vandelay Design has a list titled “50 of the Best Church Website Designs“. I agree with them, most of the designs are very nice.

The Active Versus the Passive Voice

Noah — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:55:14 +0000

I’ve had trouble forming a clear way to describe the difference between the active and the passive voice. No it doesn’t have to do with making everything an action!

The page http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html was found by me… today. If the previous sentence doesn’t bother you, then you really need to read the article.

Rejoicing Over Someone else’ Failure

Noah — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:00:09 +0000

Many people seem to likes to see someone more successful at something than they are, fail at that same thing; and that’s sad.

I bring this up because the CBC is reporting “Buffett admits investment mistakes after historic loss“. The title is a simple statement of a fact. However what’s disturbing is that they’ve chosen that to be a top story. The top story isn’t the historic losses, the effect this has on people’s lives or jobs, no it’s that Buffett made a mistake. If you go on and read the article you’ll notice it’s oozing with an unpleasant sentiment, not consolation, or admiration of his honorableness. Instead of admiring a man who is very successful at what he does, and big about his failure, CBC and the unwashed masses who worship them are holding a party over his failure. Yet at the same time these people complain about the losses of their own investments and claim it’s the fault of the rich and that CEOs should be punished.