Music Pick of the Week – Endless Blue

Bobby

A couple years ago I met a friend at work who was a swing dancing fanatic. She was constantly consumed by swing dancing and made it sound like so much fun I asked her to help teach me. While ultimately I didn’t feel too comfortable either dancing or fitting in with the swing dancing crowd, it was an interesting experience. My friend, Andrea, introduced me to many different kinds of music. One of the songs we danced to was Peggy Lee’s version of the Little Willie John’s hit “Fever”.

This brings us to this week’s music pick, Milwaukee’s Endless Blue. A few months ago Brian over at Coverville played a mashup of Fever done by Endless Blue. It is a great version of the classic song. If you are a fan of trip-hop or of the classic jazz song Fever I recommend listening to this rendition.

You just can’t be good at everything

Bobby

WebProNews has an article about Walmart’s attempt to get in touch with the MySpace crowd. Walmart’s reason for doing this? Their “flagging fortunes in the hotly competitive apparel market”. This is just the latest salvo in Walmart’s attempt to capture some of the apparel market. Other changes have been wood floors under the apparel section, a new line of ‘urban’ women’s clothes (like a bunch of hicks from Arkansas would know ‘urban’ if it kicked them in the teeth) and an article in an issue of Vogue. These are recommended Floor screeding contractors in London.

The most interesting thing, to me, is I have not seen one article concerning the real problem with clothes bought at Walmart. Almost every store branded clothing item I have bought from Walmart was of completely inferior quality. Walmart runs a well documented business model of constantly forcing their vendors to supply products at increasingly lower prices. When textile manufacturers are forced to produce at lower prices they use inferior quality materials or do inferior workmanship. When Levi Strauss introduced their ‘Signature’ line into Walmarts three years ago they had to produce a lower quality product. As a result, I imagine that Walmart Levi’s do not last as long as Levi’s bought other places.

Now, I’m not Walmart’s clothing demographic by any means, but purchasing quality goods is as important to a teenage girl as it is to me. No one wants to purchase clothes that are going to fall apart after the 2nd washing. Walmart is the low-cost leader. They have built their reputation and their brand on being the low-cost leader. Along with being low-cost comes a reputation for having poor quality goods. While many of Walmart’s store brand items are OK, many of them are of very poor quality.

The one thing I REALLY don’t understand about all of this is why. Why does Walmart feel the need to dominate EVERY aspect of retail sales? Why doesn’t the Walmart management understand that they can’t control everything? Walmart is the number one retailer in the world, they offer brand name products at the lowest available prices, they have become the largest food retailer in the US, what kind of audacity makes the Walmart board of directors think they can now take over designer clothing? Walmart, stick with what you’re good at and let go of what you aren’t.

ATVs are Cool

Bobby 80 Comments

Finally bought an ATV this spring. Not anything too exciting, but a good starter bike.

1988 Yamaha Warrior 350

It’s a 1988 Yamaha Warrior (YFM350). Not sure yet if it’s a long term machine or not. I like the Warrior for a variety of reasons and it seems to be a good trail bike, but there were some design changes between 88 and 89. I’m thinking about selling it and getting a newer one. If anyone out there has links or information on what changed with the 89 models and why, or what parts swap between Blasters, Banshees and Warriors, let me know – it will make my decision easier.

A National Embarassment

Bobby

Washington D.C Police Chief, Charles H. Ramsey declared a crime emergency on Tuesday. 14 people were killed in the first 11 days of July and two groups of tourists were robbed at gunpoint on the National Mall on Tuesday alone. What an embarassment this is. Our government thinks they can keep the peace in Baghdad, but our own capital is in a shambles. Maybe we should just leave the troops in Iraq… they are probably safer there.

What I personally find even more abominable is the fact that Congress is responsible for Washington. Unlike the 50 states, Washington D.C. is under direct control of the U.S. Congress. They have the power and responsibilty for keeping the city safe. Instead they are busy sending money to Iraq, discussing gay marriage, trying to build a wall along the Mexican border and trying to make sure nobody burns the flag. This is the greatest country in the world, and Washington should be the most beautiful, peaceful, safe city in the world. Instead it’s an embarrassment to the whole world. If we can’t keep our capital safe for tourists that want to experience the history, how can we POSSIBLY think we can police the rest of the world.

I challenge our Congress and elected representatives to put a stop to this NOW. Get of your collective behinds and clean up your capital, before more people are robbed, assaulted and murdered!!!!

Did we evolve?

Bobby

Doc Rampage has an interesting post on the currently popular topic of how evolution fits with Christianity. I have to admit, I’m in much the same place Doc is. I am a Christian and believe in creation, but there is scientific evidence that definitely makes a young-earth creation more difficult to believe in. While, unlike Doc, I’m not ready to question the canon there are some unanswered questions I have.

I’m never one to shy from a debate, but there are some difficulties in this topic, as I have experienced lately in discussions on Mano Singham’s blog. This is largely a question of philosophy. It seems that, for most people, the science doesn’t decide the question one way or the other. It’s actually the belief (or disbelief) in a omiscient creator that creates the starting ground and the discussion is polarized based on an individual’s beliefs. Often the discussion breaks down more into ‘who should prove what’ than any discussion weighing the actual evidence.

There is one thing I think gets lost in all of this discussion. For much of the scientific community creation or evolution is meaningless. In either case man, and all other leaving things, reached a point some 6,000 years ago where he was uniquely suited for his environment. If we were created by God it’s reasonable to assume that our minds and bodies were created to function in the cultures that existed at that time. If we evolved it’s also reasonable to assume that we adapted to our particular situation. This means for sociology, psychology, medicine, archeology and most anthropological studies evolution is a non-issue. If we start at recorded history and work from the idea that we are uniquely suited to live on this planet in the social groups that existed at the time all science is minimally impacted. All that’s left are the biologists and the philosophers duking it out.

Music Pick of the Week – Sleepthief

Bobby

Anyone who knows me, probably won’t be able to tell you what kind of music I like. My tastes are across the spectrum, and I won’t bother to try and pigeonhole myself to any particular genre(s), styles or artists. I know what I like and when I find something good I listen to it.

That brings us to my first Music Pick of the Week. I regularly listen to a podcast named Coverville. Coverville is a show dedictated to cover songs (wouldn’t have guessed that). The great thing about Coverville is the host, Brian, plays such a diverse selection of music from many different kinds of artists.

One of the artists Brian played recently goes by the name Sleepthief. I’m not sure what they officially would like to be designated, but to me they sound like a kind of Celtic Trip Hop. I’ll leave you to your own conclusions, bottom line, I thought they were great.

For more information you should listen to Coverville 216: Tonight, your chauffeur belongs to me, Shifted Sound Podcast 16 or just visit the Sleepthief Website.

Stupid Global Warming

Bobby

Global Warming. It’s the hot buzzword these days. Between Al Gore’s movie, the price of gas and the scientists testifying in Congress it’s all you hear.

Funny thing though, wouldn’t have thought Global Warming would make it COLDER. Yet here I am, on the 8th of July 2006, in a Colorado summer and it’s 69 degrees and raining. Not even the afternoon thunderstorm raining we typically get, no, it’s a November drizzle. If it was 20 degrees colder it would be snowing.

Anyone who has ever spent any time on the Colorado Front Range could tell you we have two kinds of weather. Warm and dry in the summer, cold and dry in the winter. A normal summer day consists of beautiful morning, temperatures rising into the 90s in the after noon and a thunderstorm about 4:00pm. I heard somewhere that we have more sunny days in Colorado than they do in Florida, The Sunshine State.

This summer, has not quite been so predictable. We started out in April and May with scorching temperatures (for the time of year), but by mid June it started cooling off. The 4th of July sky looked like a December snowstorm. I’m sure my localized observations are not indicative of planet wide climate change, but I definitely don’t think the whole global warming bit is living up to it’s name.

State troopers get new toy

Bobby

Colorado State Patrol is training with a new radar gun that can measure the distance between cars. The idea is the troopers can find people who are following too close and give them tickets. Personally, I HATE people that follow too close and normally try to leave a good amount of distance between cars. Part of my reasoning comes from ideas about traffic patterns. Leaving extra space between cars can actually improve traffic flow.

The question I have is why do we need a fancy new radar gun to see if anyone is following too close? Colorado law reads that a car must maintain a “reasonable and prudent distance” from the car in front. The ‘reasonable and prudent’ leaves the decision completely in the hands of the State Patrol officer. It’s kind of like ‘driving too fast for conditions’, the measurement is completely subjective. Anyone who drives Colorado highways knows that there are many motorists that follow too closely, a new gadget isn’t needed to see this, yet I don’t know anyone that has been pulled over for this. I can’t see any reason why knowing the exact distance between cars is of any use at all. Sounds like it’s just another way to waste some taxpayer money. Maybe the State Patrol is planning on writing enough tickets to cover the cost.