I don’t need more flashing lights in my life right now

I just came back from a grand tour of all establishments (that I know of) here in Charlottetown that sell car CD players. My sigfinicant other recently bought a used Toyota with a dud CD player. We like the factory default — it’s simple, it has a volume knob, it doesn’t light up live a rave/disco/acid-flashback.

As it turns out, factory default car CD players seem to be the only ones available that aren’t totally X-treme®!

I’m having a similar problem with replacing my cell phone. It seems that color screens on cell phones do two things (and only two things, as far as I can tell): 1) suck up the battery faster, and 2) obscure system icons with crappy photo-realistic but unintelligible icons.

Anyone who has tried to buy sneakers in the last few years knows that unless you are a go-go dancer from Mars, a mountain climber, or some kind of space athelete, there are no shoes for you.

I can understand that “dudes” want to buy wacky stereos for their dude-mobiles. I also understand that flashy lights might help sell products when they are sitting next to a bunch of others on a store shelf. However, is there not a market for simple and elegant user interfaces? I am not asking for much — from the last I’ve seen, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Subaru, etc, all have relatively simple factory default stereos. Why can’t we buy these after-market?

Are substance, value, and usability — factors that come into play after the purchase, not during or before — always going to be drowned out by flash and featuritis — which make their impression at the time of purchase, but let you down afterwards? Of course, I dont’t mind that these wacky products are out there — I just wish I could still get something simpler.

I don’t need more flashing lights in my life right now.

(by the way, if anyone knows where you can buy a used factory default toyota CD player in Charlottetown, please let me know)

 

Mammoth: noun, adjective, and beast

I’ve posted here before about how the randomness and lack of context of the headlines on CNN.com often have disturbing/hilarious result. On any given day, the list of “Top Stories” headlines can almost always make me laugh out loud.

Today was no exception. Early today, one of the headlines read:

Mammoth skull found in a gravel pit

A few hours later, during which someone at CNN must have noticed the unindended brilliance of this headline, it was updated to the more accurate, but less hilarious:

Skull of mammoth found in a gravel pit

In case you are actually interested in the mammoth skull, you can check out the story and get a bonus “artists rendition of a mammoth”.

 

Acts of Volition Radio: Session Four

Acts of Volition Radion: Session FourThe fourth session of Acts of Volition Radio is here. This session is based on songs and albums that are particularly well recorded, produced, or engineered.

A collection of particularly well recorded, produced, or engineered tracks. Recorded Wednesday, January 21, 2003 by Steven Garrity. Run time: 49min.

Session Four Playlist:

  1. Sandbox – The Garden Song
  2. The Watchmen – Brighter Hell
  3. David Usher – F-Train
  4. Age of Electric – Enya
  5. Poor Old Lu – Ring True
  6. Hole – Awful
  7. Cush – Heaven Sent

Also, a reminder that Acts of Volition Radio has an RSS feed of it’s own. The next session is going to be all about great guitar songs — I’m looking forward to it.

Acts of Volition Radio
Acts of Volition Radio
Acts of Volition Radio: Session Four
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