Haha, VICTORY!

Pop Music Too Loud and All Sounds the Same: Official

A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.
  
This is from Reuters, not the Onion, so I now have no shame in requesting that you please vacate my literal and figurative area of aesthetic and recreational space, planted with durable things, subject to weed, pest control, and practices aimed at its maintenance, and regularly mowed to ensure an acceptable length. NOW.

Oh Japan, you so crazy.



















This, in combination with the eroding walls of internet privacy, are going to cause some problems, I'll tell you what. Off to sequester myself in a hidey-hole in the Canadian tundra...

Haha, lest you think I'm turning all puppies and rainbows on you -- you know I can't go too many days without complaining.

Leonard Cohen is touring. And he's playing the gorgeous Paramount Theatre in downtown Oakland. Guess how much tickets are?

$100-$251.

Jeebus.

Unless, of course, you want a nosebleed seat. Those are $70. And I think I'd only pay that if it was general admission.

I am all about someone getting paid, but the prices of shows are really ridiculous. But I suppose someone like Cohen isn't making his money from merchandise, so a higher ticket price is a little more understandable. However, I won't excuse $251 for anybody. Boo.

Looks like I'll be putting on Songs of... and drinking bourbon at home that night, for free, instead of dropping nearly $100 after fees. Hell, it's probably better than a seat where you need opera glasses!

Louis C. K. is awesome.



"Give it a second! It's going to space!" -- brilliant.

And he's so right about rotary phones. Oi, those phone numbers with zeros! I used a rotary phone until I moved out of my parents' house. I remember going to the pay phone so I could use a touch-tone phone to register for my community college classes.

I think I love this guy.