Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2010

I Could Be Simon's Replacement!

I've mentioned before that I wear hearing aids, which do a good job at boosting the volume of most sounds, but not such a good job at delivering sounds that can be perceived as completely natural. I find that a lot of things sound 'too hard' compared to how I believe the rest of the world hears them. In addition to that problem, when the hearing aids are not fitting quite well, there is an issue with feedback, which results in a high pitch squealing assault on my ear drums.

I've managed to complicate my hearing problems further by smashing one of my hearings aids into about 20 pieces when I knocked over a can of mousse that landed squarely on it. I'm now using an old, ill fitted back-up, which does not match the other ear, so things are more 'off' than usual.

There is a possible world where I wouldn't even notice the difference in my life if it weren't for my almost embarrassing compulsion to watch American Idol. During the main auditions, the squealing was off the hook. I'm not just talking about the singers. The feedback in my ears sometimes carried on through the commercial break. And now that the top 24 are performing and the music quality is supposed to be improving, I'm hearing exactly the opposite.

Based on what the judges are saying about the contestants, they seem hearing the same thing that I'm hearing. Normally this doesn't happen for me. Very often, I'm prone to liking what the judges hate. This season, we seem to be on the same page.

By taking messed up hearing, and applying a messed up solution to it, I'm wondering now if I've managed to find the formula to be a bang-on music critic.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Holy Customer Service!

In keeping with my quest to bring back the music, I decided to set up an iTunes account. I was skeptical about putting my credit card number 'out there', so I came up with the idea of buying a gift card from a 'real life' store, and then using it as my payment option when setting up the account. It seemed like a great idea, until I wasn't able to make it happen.

I entered all the pertinent information, but the card was deemed invalid. I tried it a day later, and got the same response. I called the store that I bought the card from, and they assured me that they had activated it. I tried several more times, but no dice. Finally, I set up an account using my credit card, and then tried to redeem the gift card after the fact. Kinda defeated the purpose of the gift card, but I wasn't going to give up on the $25 already spent. When I attempted to redeem it, I was informed that the card was already redeemed. WTF? Great. I was already anticipating the hassle of dealing with customer support.

I sent off an e-mail, and was informed that my case would be dealt with within 48 hours. Surprisingly, it was! Somehow, probably during one of my supposed failed attempts at setting up the account with the gift card only, I managed to create an account under a different user name. This meant that I set up two accounts, one with the gift card, and one with the credit card. All in all, I would say that this was my fault. I felt stupid, and sent back a note saying, "Thanks, whoops, sorry!", and then went on to redeem the gift card. Apple done good, as far as I was concerned.

Today, I got another e-mail from the same person at Apple's customer support, thanking me for the opportunity to assist me. Then as a show of good measure, she told me that she is giving me a credit on my account for one free song download. Good measure??? Really? Wasn't I the one who messed up? Then I looked for the credit on my account, and saw that they had given me five credits! Five free songs because I'm too much of a tool to set up an account properly!

Then, I got another e-mail from another person, exclaiming that they were so pleased that they successfully sorted out this matter for me.

I was reminded of the self-satisfied doors from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

“All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.”

As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sigh-like quality to it. “Hummmmmmmyummmmmmm ah!” it said.

I Got free stuff though, so I'm not complaining.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Shouldn't She Have Been Baking Cookies or Something?

Writing a post every day has given me time for reflection, motivating me to take action on a couple of things that are lacking in my life. The first one, which I have already discussed, is that I need to put time and energy into music. The second one is that I need to drink more. Don't let my ambition intimidate you. It has taken me a long time to get to this point.

Last night, in my quest to be proactive, I decided to break open a bottle of wine and watch the American Music Awards. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially during Adam Lambert's performance. As you may recall from last week, his managers were being mocked for requesting that he not be portrayed as 'too gay' in a magazine that he was featured in. When I saw him driving a couple of leashed, leather-harnessed men, I realized that Lambert and his managers were not on the same page. When Lambert dry humped one of these guys in the mouth, I was pretty certain of it. Then he fondled a female dancer's crotch, made out with a male-ish keyboardist, and actually left me stunned, which doesn't happen often. Nothing usually strikes me as exceptionally risque. This did, although not in a disapproving way. I just couldn't believe Lambert's 'cojones'.

My mom watched the same awards show. "What did you think of Adam Lambert last night?", she asked me when she came by today

"I couldn't believe it!", I replied with a smirk, as I waited to hear about how she no longer respects him as a performer.

"Oh, I thought he was great!", she started. "I just don't care for the way he styles his hair."

(shaking my head) Grandparents today are just too desensitized!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Coming Out of the Dark Ages

In 2002, I moved close to my office. I no longer had a commute worth speaking of. Sometimes there was no time to hear even one song on the radio on my way to work. I lost touch with all the new releases and hits. I lost opportunity to play the music that I already owned. This was the beginning of my musical decline. It only got worse in 2005, when our first born came along, and sapped up much of my free time. Kicking back to some tunes while reading a crappy magazine became something I could only dream of.

Hubby enjoys music, but primarily in passing. He has provided no influence in my musical education, and has never played any tunes around the house. He and I both got into downloading every song from the '80's back in the days of free Napster, and we do have a couple of iPods floating around, but the MP3 collection is getting tired, as we haven't really kept up.

There is an iPod that is designated for me, but it was initially Hubby's, and not actually ever presented to me. I don't entirely know how to reset it and get it up and running, not that I've tried. We also have a Mac, which is an excellent device for organizing music, but I must confess, it has been a bit of a waste thus far. It's really lightweight and small, so it's great for surfing the net while watching TV, but for the most part, we don't (know how to) maximize its potential.

The sad thing is that this is coming from a house that is packed to the rim with the latest technology. Hubby brings it all home, sets it up sometimes haphazardly, loses manuals, and gives me operating instructions on a need-to-know basis. This bugs me because I'm was always fairly savvy when it came to this stuff. Don't get me started on the state of our home theatre. Anyhow, back to the music thing, I've finally decided to deal with it as my life without music is starting to get me down.

I'm starting by loading up every disc I own onto the Mac, getting the iPod up and running, and rolling with it from there. So far there is a heavy slant towards the '90's, but it's a start. It should only be a matter of time before I am inspired to seek out new things once I tire of Blink 182 and The Cranberries.

While I was sitting in the kitchen, loading up some James Brown, I became impressed that a disc that was compiled in 1985 had all the useful information for being organized by iTunes. This is probably small potatoes to the rest of y'all, but it has never mattered to me that CDs have all the behind the scenes information encoded within. I remarked on this to my mother, who made me feel better by saying, "I'm not impressed by any of this computer stuff. The most impressive thing to me is still the fax machine."

Mom, you will not be receiving an iPhone for Christmas.