Pardon the absence.

Sorry, gang. I'm still here and intend to get back to regular posting schedule, but the past few days I've had a doozy of a cold that also managed to slap me with a low grade fever for a couple of days. So blogging and podcasting have not been at the top of my list of things to do. Rather, blowing my nose ad infinitum and trying to relocate my sense of taste have. But I'm here and we'll be all back to normal shortly. Danke.

Reloading your iPod is a bitch.

When you have a lot of music like I do, loading up all the shit you want on your iPod is a time-consuming activity. Doesn't matter how fast your transfer rate is, the simple fact is that it's insanely annoying. Well, I had the misfortune of having to reload my iPod Touch last week.

The problem was my videos. They weren't showing up on the screen when I pressed the video button. The screen would just go white for a few seconds and then crash to home screen. I looked up the problem online and it seemed a lot of other people had this exact same problem, yet Apple itself hasn't been able to figure it out.

Well, I figured it out.

It seems the more stuff you have on your iPod Touch, the longer it takes to access the list of videos and display said list on the screen. After I completely wiped my iPod, I added back my videos first just to see if they would load. They did without a hitch. However, once I started adding on more and more songs (in the thousands, people), it was taking longer and longer to cough up the videos until I was basically back to where I had been pre-wipe. Only difference was this time I didn't re-add the shitloads of apps I had also had on there so instead of always crashing back to the home screen, it now just took three or four attempts to get the video list to load.

It's still annoying as piss and shouldn't be a problem at all. Especially when I have the 64 gigger. There's tons of space left open and why the damn thing struggles to load 29 videos up and doesn't bat an eye at loading thousands of songs is perplexing.

But on top of that, the time it took me to put all those tunes back on was scattered across three frickin' days. I'm still tinkering with it, too, by putting back album art and the like that iTunes cannot seem to find, even though some of those things I bought straight from it. Go figure.

Camel Ike podcast returnz!

After a week-long hiatus, the Camel Ike podcast has returned to groove you. So get get grooved, won't you?

Reviews from the Spark Plug - Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill

Steely Dan

Can't Buy a Thrill

Rating: ***1/2

 

You know what my favorite things are?  Bananas, hookers, lips, and electric sperm.  Guess how overjoyed I was when I first saw this album, then!  All of my favorite things right there on the cover!  I like the band's logo on his one, too.  It's almost like they were to be the Coke brand of rock.  I've noticed that girls who wear glasses and read boring shit like Tom Robbins books often like to be felt up while listening to "Midnite Cruiser" from this album.  So I guess they can't be all that bad, right?

Reviews from the Spark Plug - Jandek's Nine-Thirty

Jandek 

Nine-Thirty

Rating: *****

Jandek waits for the ice cream man.  What will Jandek get today?  Perhaps a Sno-Cone. Maybe a plan vanilla on a cake cone.  He might get risky and try a fudge bar.  He's thinking about it.  You can see the thoughts roll by in the tension on his face.  Undoubtedly, though, he will get what he always gets.  A cup of water and a napkin.

Reviews from the Spark Plug - Bowie's Pin Ups

David Bowie

Pin Ups

Rating: ***

Some friends of mine came over one night.  One brought along this red-haired girl who had some LSD in her compact.  She took a hit while we were all sitting around listening to Sesame Street Fever and playing canasta.  About a half an hour later she starts moaning and shit and says she's going to the bathroom.  Next thing you know she's screaming at us to all come and help her.

So we get into the bathroom thinking she has hurt herself or something.  Nope, she's just staring in the mirror pulling her hair back from her brow and pointing, yelling "Oh my god I'm Bowie on the Pin Ups cover!  Look at that!  Oh my god, I'm Bowie! What am I doing here?  I need to get back to London!"

So she proceeds to step back out into the living room and sings all of "Changes" in a slow croon, then runs outside to "make her flight."  She promptly collapses on the ground.  Before we can get to her to pick her up, the neighbor's dog walks by and pisses on her head. Classic.

Reviews from the Spark Plug

Scatological. Insane. Clearly stupid. Just what you want in a music review. "Reviews from the Spark Plug" is a new feature here that will be highlighting absolutely craptastic album reviews with zero merit that I wrote over at the rateyourmusic website. I've been over at that site since shortly after its debut. When I started, I wrote legit reviews that informed. After a while, though, the rot set in and I left along with my reviews.

When I returned, I decided to write the anti-review. The reviews were sometimes satirical or parodies of other reviews on the site, but mainly they were just over the top, childish and aimed at the lowest common denominator. But whatever, I love them and now I'm passing on the ridiculousness to you. If anything, these reviews may just prove that music critics really may not be that necessary if at all. We all know the story of The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, et al, but you don't know my version of it. Until now.