Magic Jewball

No one will be around on this holiday weekend to actually read this but the fact that I haven’t posted in a few days compels me to at least throw something out there. Despite my infamous loathing of summer, I have to admit, I’m looking forward to it this year due to four exciting concerts on my horizon: (in calendar order) Keane, Deftones, The Police, and Crowded House. I’m most psyched about these last two, both of whom broke up before I had a chance to see them. The Police were the favorite band of my childhood but CH are probably the band who float my boat the most whom I’ve never seen (The Smiths would come in second but there’d be a distance). Everyone knows that Neil Finn is my favorite songwriter ever (or now you do) and I’ve seen him play many times both alone or with Tim but I am kind of melting into a little pool of excitement over CH, despite them being one third dead.

So here’s to the soon-to-be-fab Summer of ‘07 and have a relaxing weekend all! I’ll be watching the French Open and then with Pious B at my niece’s Bat Mitzvah. We’ll try to come up with some fun material for the J-Ball, but let me tell you, it’ll probably be slim pickings. Except the food, that ought to be pretty ample. This never sounds quite right but Happy Memorial Day! Remember, our brave men and women in uniform would want you to barbecue and shop!

Crowded House - Love This Life

(click to stream)

(Edited 5/27 to add streaming audio… this song is essentially my philosophy of life, so why have to go to Napster to hear it?)

Remember the Omer? No, of course you don’t, it’s moved off the first page. It’s the seven week period beginning at Passover and this week it finally ends. What does this mean for me? A holiday! What does that mean for you? No posts! That is to say, last year I had a kind guest poster but this year I just wasn’t organized enough. Maybe I’ll have it more together by Rosh Hashanah (see me after class if you want to guest post in September). Anyhoo, the holiday is imaginatively called Shavu’ot (weeks) and that’s because I’ll be trapped in the suburbs for what will seem like weeks. Pray for Becca!

Should you not have brushed up on Jewish Holiday Trivia since last year, this is the one where you eat mostly dairy to celebrate receiving the laws telling us what kind of meat we can eat (hint: no bacon, no Mickey D’s). Because before that, it was non-stop blintzes. Or something. But I will be making blintzes, actually, although unlike the Hamentaschen from a few months ago there will be no pictures. This is a labor-intensive job which takes several hours, two people, three crepe pans, four fillings, and a lot of burnt fingers. Did I mention we’re making blintzes for fifteen people? Cameras just aren’t going to work.

Here’s the picture from the Interweb that best matches what the ones my family recipe produce look like (in the pan no less). Because I won’t be around to answer comments (although someone will be moderating - don’t be naughty), I’ll answer the inevitable question now: why blintzes? Because they’re dairy and because despite the fact that Jewish holidays go back to ancient times, most recipes which Ashkenazic Jews use seem to have originated in Eastern Europe in the last 300 years. I guess the Jews lost their cookbooks on the way to the Pale of Settlement.

Anyway, have a cheese-filled couple of days and think of me and my box of Lactaid. If you’re already vegetarian, uh, carry on as normal. Oh, and while you’re thinking milky thoughts, please enjoy this “demotivator poster” I put together with the fun tool I learned about on JF’s site. I dedicate it to the 2007 NY Yankees. Consider making your own and have a contest while I’m gone! I’ll save a blintze for the winner.

Nirvana - Big Cheese

It’s a JBall tutorial! So what happens when you own your favorite songs on cassette or LP but not CD? Maybe they’re not even available on iTunes or Napster or your favorite download service! Are you doomed, DOOMED? No, of course not, you can import your cassettes and transform them, as if by magic, into an mp3 that can be played on your iPod or computer or brown Microsoft player.

While I am typing this, as it happens, I’m listening to the groovy sounds of the iPod Song of the Week as it flows melodiously onto my hard drive. Gosh, it’s nice. But how am I accomplishing this? I’m using a paid program for Macs called WireTap Pro ($19, totally worth it) but if you’re on a PC you can use Audacity which is free. Mac users (including me) can use Audacity to edit the silences out (or, you know, the first note of the next song if you’re not quick to the stop button) which is what I did. Here’s our song o’the week, for the first time revealed graphically.

(click to enlarge)

So all you need is what I have here:

• ancient walkman or tape player
• cord pictured here (if you are using a stereo system you’ll need a Y-cord, aka RCA to headphone cable)
• cassette

You just need to attach the cord to the line-in jack on your computer, press play on the tape, record on your software, and voilà. It’s my understanding that some additional thing is required to deal with the sound on LP’s but I could be wrong. That will be my next project! Or, someone can answer that in the comments. If you like a different software better, feel free to suggest that too.

(PS, if you’re someone I speak to via Skype, I can now record our phone calls too! But I won’t, I swear on my Aztec Camera cassette.)

Oh right, the song. It’s, uh, good. No, I kid, Aztec Camera was mostly one Scottish guy, Roddy Frame, and he wrote what I love best: catchy, well-crafted pop music. There’s a song I like even better than this one but that tape seems to have disappeared. I suppose it’s amazing I still have this one, really.

Aztec Camera - Oblivious
Not available on iTunes or Napster. Weren’t you reading? That was the point. But you can stream it on the iSotW page. Notice the perfect start and stop editing!

Well, it’s been a long time since I talked about Interpol so no complaining. But their new CD comes out July 10th and I’ll be there to pick up my copy (stupid Interpol, not signing with my label, bitchmoanbitch). But today I saw the cover for the first time, necessitating the cryptic title of this post.

Quite a departure from

and

Who designed this new one, Mutual of Omaha’s Gory Wild Kingdom?

Not promising. Luckily the new song is excellent. Here’s 30 seconds worth from Napster as well as a link to the stream of the full version.

Interpol - Heinrich Maneuver
Full version

So yesterday I got a little message (how isn’t important but it wasn’t via bird or telegraph, I assure you) that the software that’s used to run this blog (Wordpress) has just been updated. The biggest new thing about it is that it’s got built-in support for sidebar-widgets. I know that sounds like something they manufacture on the Jetsons but it’s actually the ability to put cute little things in your sidebar and move them around as you wish. I mean, I have a few fun things now but they were stuck there manually. I began to wonder if it was worth all the work to make my design function with these widget things. So I had a look at the Wordpress widget directory. Here are some of the widgets on offer (I’m just going to include the descriptions and not the titles so as not to embarrass the designers who I’m sure worked very hard on these things):

Add an ‘About Me’ with image/blurb/links to your sidebar
Sounds suspiciously like something I already have.

Allows entry and display of latest AV fuel prices
How…. useful.

Outputs your Battlefield 2 profile statistics
This is surely what my blog has been lacking.

Template widget for caching widget content
I don’t even know what this means.

Display charts in sidebar
I can see it now: “Becca’s blogging productivity, downward trending.”

Display your list of favorite beers and pubs.
Oh, but how could I make these all fit in one container?

Display information about Indonesia
What, you don’t know everything already?

Controls color and size of adsense ads
NO ADS, NO.

Display your location with Google Maps as a widget
It’s Manhattan. In New York. In the USA. North America, Earth. You’ll just have to visualize it in your mind.

Add UK Lib Dem campaign buttons.
Tempting, but will the colors match my theme?

Display your favorite stock quotes
Up is usually my favorite.

Show link to Amazon book read
Too humiliating.

Allows bloggers to promote other good bloggers
Isn’t that what the links area is for?

Displays ‘festive dates’.
The quotation marks around ‘festive’ scare me.

Allow visitors to translate your blog
Have you used Google translate? If not, here’s an actual sample:
“The things should hardly be arranged by the end of the century. A modeling recent, carried out by NASA and published in April in the Newspaper of Climate, indicates that by 2085, the summers will become extremely hot in the United States. The temperature could spread out of 38 oC with 42 oC on most of the American territory.”
[editor’s note: scary!]

Places the verse of the day (biblegateway.net) in your sidebar
Oh, hell to the no.

A widget for WP Polls
How much are people annoyed by polls:
a. a lot
b. exponentially
c. Ask me again and I kill you.

Displays the Last.fm Track played most recently
If they had this for AOL Radio, I’d do it. But Last.fm always tells me the artist I want isn’t available. And who wants that in your sidebar? Poll answer: not me.

Displays your clock in your sidebar
Excellent for a link to “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” but other than that I can’t think of a reason.

Adds a customizable Skype “Call me” button to your sidebar
I love you all but please don’t call me.

Allow visitors to send SMS messages to your mobile device
Preferable, but still no.

Display users on-line
Do you really want everyone knowing you’re reading this blog right now?

Come to think of it, I think I’ll remain unwidgetized for the time being.

Chicago - Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?