Carl Cravens @CarlCravens@mastodon.xyz

New webcam is nice and clear, but super-wide angle... if I forget to close my door, you can see across the hall to the toilet in the hall bath.

#VideoChatLyfe

This is me, remembering Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls" was a thing.
Huh... it was written by Prince.

If another website asks me to enter my phone number, lets me type dashes, and then tells me the number is invalid because it contains dashes... I'm going to take away somebody's javascript license.

This is like really basic stuff... how are developers failing this?

user: Your web application isn't loading the menu frame. Can you help me get this working correctly?
me: Have you tried force-reload?
user: That did it, thanks!
🤦‍♂️

Did you know Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes" was written by David Bowie?

Finally listening to _Rock Classics_, a compilation album of early 70's rock. This is one of the earliest records I owned (around 5th grade)... what's odd is that I recognize and love every song on this album, but I never really pursued other music by these artists. I don't think I could even tell you who sang any of them. It's really interesting looking up The Chamber Brothers, Edgar Winters, etc and reading about them today.

So now I need to give these a listen... maybe I was premature in considering them all bad just because I'd never heard of them.

But first I need to give them a bath... some of these are the dirtiest records I've seen.

singles:
Jump 'n the Saddle Band, The Curly Shuffle
(a novelty song from 1984, honoring the 3 Stooges...
#15 on the Billboard chart)

Lionel Richie, Truly
(his first solo single, a #1 Billboard hit)

Conway Twitty, This Time I've Hurt Her More Than She Loves Me
(a #1 country hit)

For those keeping score:

Donovan's Greatest Hits
(Mellow Yellow guy, album certified platinum and hit #4 on Billboard's album chart)

Graham Parker, The Mona Lisa's Sister
(Rolling Stone ranks this in the top 100 albums of the 1980's)

John Klemmer, Touch (saxophonist with 31 albums with him as lead, nearly that many with him supporting)

Voyage, Fly Away
(French disco/pop band, album hit #1 on dance charts)

So I tried a vintage record club. 6 records/mo for $30. Got to pick some broad categories... so I picked 80's new wave/rock/pop, classic rock, and 70s/80s rock/pop singles.
I knew I'd get mostly unpopular records. I didn't expect to not even recognize a single LP artist. I did get Conway Twitty (not rock/pop) and Lionel Richie singles, and a best-of the guy who did Mellow Yellow... but I didn't know the artist.

For $30, I can get 2-4 records I know I want, so that was a failed experiment.

I was very young when I encountered The Beatles, when someone gave me _Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_. Having never heard of them, I thought "Sgt Pepper's..." was the name of the band and _Beatles_ was the name of the record. I mean, the song says, "We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," what was I supposed to think?

I think the largest amount of superstition in the vinyl community is around how to clean a record.

Another bit of resume advice to young people: the hiring manager reading your resume may have old eyes. Don't use a tiny font to fit it all on one page... I really hate trying to read it when you do that, and it doesn't make me inclined to call you.

I hadn't really thought how much I've become used to "pausing" music... tapes, CD, digital, they all easily pause the music without thinking about it. A record? I'm leaving the needle suspended above spinning record while I leave my desk. That feels uncomfortable.

I need to hook up my speakers so I can get up from my chair without stopping the music. Right now, I feel putting on a record is a commitment to staying in my chair until the side is over.

Peter Gabriel clearly wasn't thinking about future collectors when he insisted on naming his first four solo albums "Peter Gabriel".

When it came to having a second kid, this was basically my thought process as well...

https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/14234

(not about Satanic underwear, honest)

_Xanadu_ was kind of a goofy movie (which I loved) but the soundtrack is sublime. Olivia Newton-John on one side and and ELO on the other.

I owned this on LP in the 80's, I bought a replacement on CD, and when I started collecting records again, I knew I needed this on vinyl again. Sometimes I'm a little confused about what music I had on vinyl and what I had on cassette... but holding this gate-fold jacket, I know I had the record. I can feel the memory.