Milt's Page

Another lover of Jazz. How could I not link?

In my gym yesterday, Let's get it started by the Black Eyed Peas played on the radio.

It's a very catchy song, and perfect encouragement to exercise... I'm just annoyed knowing that the original song (Let's get retarded in here) had to have the lyrics changed by the Politically Correct^{stupid TM} to get widespread record play. Like we all really think they were slagging the actually mentally disabled </sarcasm>.

One neat thing from the show last night: when some of the Idol contestants flew home from practice, I recognized the airport! Since I was in Calgary at the beginning of the month, and a few contestants flew to Calgary, they arrived at the same terminal I did.

Well, one of the weak singers on Canadian Idol was cut on tonight's show. One I expected to make the bottom three (Casey) was safe.

I wonder if folks getting cut makes a difference in the end. With albums now coming out from folks cut like Jason Greely (we really need a new Stomping Tom...), Shane Wiebe (his reedy voice was painful last year) and Jacob Hobbard's band (well, him I liked)... I don't see not being the final winner hurting a career start.

Mind you, I don't expect them to get past that first album.

Your Blogging Type is Unique and Avant Garde

You're a bit ... unusual. And so is your blog. You're impulsive, and you'll often post the first thing that pops in your head. Completely uncensored, you blog tends to shock... even though that's not your intent. You tend to change your blog often, experimenting with new designs and content.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Eenterestink...

So far I've managed to keep Couleur Jazz reception on my alarm clock. I've been noticing some things about the programming though:

• They make a promise of not playing the same song twice in a 24-hour day. That would be fine - if said songs didn't then get played right off the next business day. Plus: the same songs I heard on constant loop before the station went live seem now to be a recurring part of the programming.


• A recurring theme seems to be part of the morning programming: a lot of Latin Jazz. I wasn't aware that Montreal had such a large Hispanic population to cater to.

Any comments on the small redesign of my blog?

Canadian Idol held its wildcard show tonight.

In my opinion: I found the performances mostly subdued. Only the last singer - Josh something - showed any actual charisma and presence to me.

Some tech crunch here... if you've been reading this blog for awhile, you'll notice my paragraphs are reading right once more.

I discovered this morning that Blogger is now using stricter XHTML, so I have to use full paragraph tags, not just ending a paragraph with one.

Ah well. I missed the 2005 Montreal Jazz Fest entirely.

That's fine though. Considering how I spent the first few days on my vacation in Calgary, and had the headache of a basement flood when I got home, it was just one thing too many for me to deal with. There'll always be next year.

I today learned I can get Couleur Jazz on my digital cable on TV!

Now when the reception signal on my clock radio gets bad, I'll get crystal clear reception anyway.

Couleur Jazz is - not surprisingly - touting the upcoming Jazz Fest here in Montreal.

Due to my trip I'll miss the first few days... but it's a given that I'll try to see some of it after!

I'm trying to get my local jazz radio station on my morning alarm again. Radio McGill is driving me up a wall right now anyway: one of their radio hosts has a very annoying voice, and they insist on having her on often.

We'll see how long it lasts this time.

One of my friends is guest-hosting a jazz radio show on CKUT McGill radio this week. If you aren't in Montreal (I know many of you aren't) you can hear it streamed from the ckut.com Website.

David is a Toronto transplantee, studying jazz music at that University. He also hosts a jazz show on the station. Now, he's a guest host on this one.

I thought I'd missed it today, but it's actually on Sunday. I may still miss it though, as I'll be at a local mall at the time.

If I bring a portable FM radio with me though, I might hear it.

If you're interested, the show is called Dobbin's Den, playing from 11 AM - 1 PM EST.

I have to relay a funny Father's Day anecdote. I'll explain why it's funny afterward:

When my family got together yesterday, my 9-year old nephew wished me a happy Father's Day. He said he knew I didn't have children, but I am a man.

I told it to my sister (his mom). She quipped that I do have cats, so it counted.

Why this is funny: on a friend's blog, she wished a happy F-D to all dads, even if we are "just cat fathers".

I love funny bits of synchronicity like that.

I hope those of you who are dads had a happy Father's Day!

I had a brunch with my folks, with all 3 of us kids, and my nephew and nieces. Afterwards we brought back all the goodies my folks got me for my birthday and my upcoming vacation.

(It still blows my mind that I'm only 8 days away!)

I'm trying to get the Atom/RSS feed for this blog started.

Granted I don't feel I update often enough - but if a feed could bring me more readers, I might be encouraged to post more often again.

Rain finally came to Montreal today, after more than 2 weeks of sweltering humidity.

This has been the sort of weather where I can't even concentrate on listening to my Jazz CDs.

I'm finally starting to get my collections of DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes and books catalogued thanks to a great freeware program called MediaMan.

All I have to do is enter a title into the wizard. It will search for it on Amazon, providing the cover art, information on track names for songs, cast info for films, etc. If the materials are too old to find them specifically on Amazon, I can scan the barcode in from a webcam, and it'll search by that instead.

It's too damn warm

Even though the weather is only 16 degrees, my apartment is always warmer; being on the 7^th floor means warm air from below always rises.

I have an air conditioner; I need to coordinate with a neighbor to have it installed. So I'm a puddle of jelly until I do.