Ryan Thomas Goodenough

Wake up, America.  We screwed up in 2000.  Somehow, we were swayed by media-fueled arguments that it was a bad idea to change leadership in the middle of a war, so we screwed up again in 2004.

We can make up for some of the consequences of our mistakes in 2008. I don’t understand why you don’t want to help your fellow Americans.

Maybe you’re in the top income bracket and want to pay fewer taxes. But that means you only care for yourself?  I hope not.

Maybe you’re a self-declared “independent.”  If you really think that, then keep this in mind: Republicans and Democrats aren’t on two ends of the ideological spectrum.  Rather, the difference is that Republicans believe in the black-and-white and Democrats believe in the gray.

It comes down to this: either you vote for yourself or you vote for everyone. Nobody suffers when you vote for everyone. That’s all you need to know come election day–stop coming up with excuses not to help your fellow Americans.

Wake up, America:

Combine New Pornographers-style vocal arrangements with some good dance pop and you’ve got this free iTunes single from Black Kids.  Instantly infectious, this is the first song that I’ve heard in a while that is actually danceable.  “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend…” is good enough to make me want to hear more from Black Kids.

Isn’t that the whole goal of the iTunes free singles?

Grade: A-

This weekend, Emily’s parents, Kira, Emily, and I visited Beaver River.  For those of you unfamiliar with this area within the Adirondack Park, here’s a great summary from the Norridgewock III’s website:

Visit our wilderness lodge this winter. Come by canoe, come by boat taxi, float plane, Tour boat, hike or kayak but you can’t come by car unless it floats…

At the Norridgewock Hotel in Beaver River, we are known for our remote location, summer water and mountain sports, spectacular fall foliage and winter snowmobiling. We are a rustic lodge, run by the Thompson family for five generations…

No roads reach us. We are surrounded by the “Forever Wild” lands of the Adirondack State Park. People come by boat, barge (a new service) or snowmobile. Getting here is half the fun. The Resort has it’s own generators. See maps and transportation to see how to get here.

Apparently, the old Beaver River was dammed in the 1920’s. Renamed the Stillwater Reservoir, it has over 100 miles of wilderness shoreline.  By damming Beaver River and creating the Reservoir,  road access to the town of Beaver River was, and remains, disabled.

It was a great trip.  We took in lunch at the lodge and explored the area before hopping back on the ferry for the trip home.  Here are some pictures I took while we were there:

Thanks Scott for this one.  If nothing else, make sure to watch the section on Notre Dame.

Well, after 2 whole weeks, Tucker will be leaving our apartment on Friday.  It has been great having him around–it’s nice to have a friendly face waiting for you at home.  Now, before he goes, I have some pictures of him at our apartment to share, as requested.

You know, I really only like non-pop, non-country, non-R&B singles from iTunes.  The rest of the stuff just doesn’t interest me and, as a result, I probably shouldn’t even try to “review” them.

Thankfully, this week’s single, “Wisdom” by Gran Ronde, is a short (we’re talking 2 minutes here), tightly-produced single that  is actually one of the more upbeat singles from their album, Secret Rooms.  It’s got a catchy hook to it and the lyrics about wanting to be in love again are not that bad. In fact, the whole song is just that: not bad.

Grade: B+

I know that I’ve been wanting TextTwist for the iPhone.  So far, there hasn’t been an official release.  However, thanks to some clever programmers, we have some clones to choose from.  Browse this TouchArcade piece for a full breakdown (boldified title = recommended):

• Word Warp v1.01 [$0.99] - not recommended
• Muddled v1.0.1 [$1.99] - not recommended
• Word Whirl v2 [$2.99] - global high scores, multiplayer
• Sextuple Word Challenge v1.0.0.1 [$0.99] - best overall pick
• Lexitron v1.0[$1.99] - visually impressive, multiple languages

A great post on TUAW today:

Have you ever wanted to quickly verify today’s date, but didn’t want to open iCal? Well, you could click on the clock in the menu to get the month/day/year. However, you can also change the layout of the clock to include the extra information such as month/day/year.

To do this, open System Preferences and go to the “International” system preference pane. Once there, click on the “Formats” tab and then click the customize button in the dates section. Select “Medium” from the drop-down menu. You should see the data change in the text box below the drop-down menu. Click inside the box, select all the text (Command + A), and then copy the text (Command + C). Once you’ve copied the text, click cancel.

Click on the customize button in the times section. Select “Medium” from the drop-down menu. Then place the cursor just before the time and paste (Command + V) the date that you just copied. You might want to add several spaces (or some sort of separator) between the date and time. Once you are finished, click OK. The changes will now show up in the menu bar.

13 and 10/100 seconds.  If Michael Phelps had raced 13:10 slower than what he raced, he might not have received any gold medals.  With margins of victory as low as :01 to as high as 5:14, it’s amazing to think how such a small amount of time separated him from being a normal Olympian to being the best of all time.

People often say how golf is a game of inches (I learned that yesterday and Friday) or how basketball comes down to free throws.  I think the same can be said for most sports.  Ultimately, what separates the great players from the good players is a couple seconds here, an extra shot there, or a lucky bounce there.

Congratulations to Michael Phelps on winning the game of inches (or seconds) and becoming the greatest Olympian I’m sure I will see in my lifetime.

For months, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my pilot’s selection of music that he gets from eMusic.  For those of you who don’t know, eMusic is a subscription-based online music store.  For as little as $11.99 per month, you get 30 or more downloads, with varying levels of membership.  The songs are DRM-free Mp3s with variable bit rates that are almost always higher than what you get with iTunes.  eMusic’s selection isn’t the best, but it’s a great way of discovering new music.  I urge you to check it out!

If you decide that you would like to try eMusic, let me know and you can get 50 free songs.