New Years Wishes

My dad sends a "Morning Report" to the family every day and shortly after New Years he sent this one which I liked:

A friend sent a New Year’s email that was a list of wishes for the future in the form of "May peace break into your house." Here’s my reply:

May war occur only in clouds.

May bankers turn IOUs into IforUs.

May your jeans have no pockets for misfortune.

May hate wash away like soap in the shower.

May tears well up for happiness and nothing else.

May your clothes reflect individuality not conformity.

May the sting on your cheek come from a brisk, cooling wind.

May your mail be full of adhesive address labels of happiness.

In short . . . .may you and yours discover a new, 2007 battery with only positive terminals, no negatives.

Queen Of Sheba

Last week I went to the Ethiopian restaurant Queen Of Sheba. I used to go this restaurant very frequently when it was located in the Uptown part of Dallas (closer to home). It had moved to North Dallas (closer to work) a year or so ago after being closed for a couple of years. The above picture (click for a larger view) was a meal for four of us.

The food was exactly the same - excellent! Though I think that they 'dumbed down' the heat for a bunch of Americans which was a little disappointing. But I still enjoyed it quite a bit. On the plate was a chicken dish, a cabbage dish, a beef dish, a beef/spinach dish, two kinds of lentil dishes, and a few others that I can't remember now.

I like the new location - it is very large, clean, with a nice modern look. But part of me misses the old location - it was darker, dingier, and more eclectic with beads and hidden booths - more exotic which fit the food.

I recommend it!

Pandora

If you haven't checked out Pandora yet and you are a music fan, you really need to. This free service uses the music genome project to identify hundreds of music attributes to help predict new music that you might like based on things that you like already.


From the website about the music genome project, music attributes tracked include "...everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like..."

What's cool about this is, first of all - it's free! It basically acts as a radio station that continuously streams music based on some bands that you enter as an input. Second of all - you'll probably enjoy listening since it's based on stuff you already like. Third of all - you'll probably get turned on to some bands that might enjoy. You can also mix and match "channels" and also train the system based on what it plays by giving it feedback.

To give you an idea of how it works, I put in the Smashing Pumpkins, and got the bands Action Action and James for the first two tracks recommend based on similarity in basic rock structures, electronica influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mixed minor and major key tonality among other things. Next I entered Ben Folds Five and got Disappointed By Candy and Beazley Phillips Band because they shared basic use of vocal harmony, acoustic rock instrumentation, acoustic rhythm piano, major key tonality among other things.

I think the technology is cool and it makes for a great radio station and a potential real breakthrough in music searching.

Muddy Hike

I went on a hike yesterday at Cedar Ridge Preserve in the DFW area yesterday with a local hiking group. The hike was not anything super aggressive but lots of mud from a rain two days previous made it more challenging. Above are my shoes about halfway through the hike (after cleaning them somewhat). At some points along the trail, I thought I was going to lose my shoes.

Divorce 123

I finally got a picture of this store while driving in Dallas. Apparently it is a quick stop for divorces! Fast "food" if you will...

Updated iTunes List

I have updated my iPod Song List. I am now up to 2978 songs. For the list, go see my Song List Web Page.