Feeling cynical

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

I went out looking for a fridge and washer/dryer.
I came home with the new Aimee Mann CD and Office Space on DVD.

Yeah, I’m feeling really cynical. Yeah, something happened at work Friday. No, I’m not at liberty to talk about it (but Charlie knows because he was in on the project too).

Aimee Mann’s Lost in Space is a very typical Aimee Mann record. She plays half a dozen different instruments and she’s as cynical as usual, though she’s lost the potty mouth. I went looking for this record’s “I Should Have Known”–the tune that reaches out and grabs your consciousness and won’t let go of it–but didn’t find it. This one will have to grow on me, like most of her records.

And Office Space… Well, I started building up a Windows box with my DVD drive out of some spare parts, and ran into a lot of problems. First, my junk Cirrus Logic-based AGP video card didn’t support DirectX, which my DVD app needed for playback. So I pulled it and replaced it with my old STB Velocity 128, which had nVidia’s first chipset. At the time, it was the fastest video card I’d ever seen. Seems really slow now. Well, that card caused any OS I tried to install to hang. I guess it’s the end of the road for that card. A shame, really.

So I figured I’d install Debian and see if I could figure out how to make it play DVDs. The Velocity 128 worked a lot longer in Linux than it did in Windows, but eventually it kicked into a corrupted text display similar to what I got in Windows. So I couldn’t just blame Windows. Rats. So the Cirrus Logic–definitely the Neifi Perez of video cards–came off the bench.

I couldn’t get any of the rogue DVD software for Debian to work, so I ended up pulling the S3 Savage4 card out of one of my working systems to put in there, since it supports DirectX. I need to order a couple of ATI Radeons from Newegg.com to replace some of these junk cards I’ve got. They’re solid and cheap–$42 delivered.

Windows 2000 ran fine with the S3 in it.

I think this is God’s way of telling me I’m a better journalist than computer tech at this point.

If you found this post informative or helpful, please share it!

5 thoughts on “Feeling cynical

  • September 3, 2002 at 10:44 am
    Permalink

    Maybe you know. My understanding is that Aimee Mann distributes her own CDs, is that correct? Does that mean the RIAA guys don’t get their cut and she gets a bigger amount of the money from the sales of CDs?

  • September 3, 2002 at 4:11 pm
    Permalink

    Yes, Aimee Mann runs her own record label, and yes, on Bachelor #2, her first release on her own label, she actually made money (which I don’t think was true of anything other than maybe her first ‘Til Tuesday record, back in 1985–and I’m not certain that record made money even though it had a huge hit on it). Trust me, she hates the record industry more than all the readers of this site combined. A lot of her “angry at ex-boyfriend” songs are actually targeted at record execs, not ex-boyfriends.

    And the CD was $13. So she’s making more, charging less.

  • September 3, 2002 at 4:44 pm
    Permalink

    Is it good or bad that when I first her Aimee Mann’s voice that I think I am hearing Karen Carpenter?

    I don’t think the music sounds anything near the same (thank goodness!) just her voice.

    strange…

  • September 3, 2002 at 11:17 pm
    Permalink

    I never noticed the resemblance before, but you’re right, there is one. In the studio at least. Judging from the live recordings I’ve heard, she’s not as good live, unfortunately.

    I think Karen Carpenter had the better voice, but Aimee Mann’s a much better bass player. 🙂 She also played everything else except electric guitar on this record too, at one time or another. Versatility’s a good thing.

    She learned to sing at Berklee, so it wouldn’t surprise me if someone noticed they were in the same range and suggested she imitate her. You can do a lot worse than to sound like Karen Carpenter, that’s for sure.

  • June 16, 2003 at 3:36 am
    Permalink

    comment
    I love Aimee Mann! But Karen Carpenter
    REALLY rocks….check out a song on the
    compilation “From the Top” called
    All I Can Do –KAren sings, plays drums
    AND electric bass. The gal’s no slouch
    and her creative legacy only grows with
    the passage of time (thank goodness)-VIC

Comments are closed.