I found out today that the sheet-music-oriented community site, PianoFiles, announced that they will shut down in December. I’m new to PianoFiles, having only joined earlier this year, but it’s been a huge resource for me already. As some of you may remember I got back into playing (drums, mostly) in musical theater pits this year, and […]

I wrote this to a friend today and figured it best to share with you all. Yes, I’m quoting myself. Live with it. Love it. The best and worst thing Google has ever done is give people reports showing data that people think they want to see. In reality that data does nothing more than […]

I don’t hate Barack Obama. I wish the man no ill will and, honestly, I originally liked ObamaCare’s high-level concepts. Ensuring that everyone gets some basic level of healthcare is A-OK by me, and I have gone on record stating that I am OK paying a little more to ensure that happens. I also like […]

Finally the national discussion is beginning to address the big three-and-a-half year old elephant in the room regarding ObamaCare: many (most?) people with individual health care/insurance plans will lose these plans in 2014. Note, for clarity: I’m not saying that we’ll lose access to coverage. We’ll simply lose the plans we have now and be forced […]

A friend of mine recently pointed me to this Salon article which cites the CEO of the company behind AdBlock Plus as saying that they’re going to start charging advertisers to not  have their ads blocked. His reason is simple: 80% of AdBlock Plus’s users aren’t against all advertising… they’re just against the irrelevant junk […]

I’ll start by saying that I think Obamacare will wind up being seen similar to how No Child Left Behind is now: something that was a great idea at the start but through the political machine turned into a steaming pile of insert-your-favorite-noun-here. “Healthcare for the poor” and “all kids getting a good eduction” are […]

I have a theory: using young, local referees without excessive training and regular auditing is going to ruin youth sports. I’ve seen many examples of it, but what happened today really cemented it clearly for me. This morning I took my son to Keene, New Hampshire to play their ~10-year-old “squirt B” hockey team. My […]

We live in the Wedgewood subdivision of Durham, a.k.a. ‘Tree-mageddon’ during this last storm. It’s 12:01pm on Tuesday, March 2nd, and we still don’t have power restored. We’re doing OK, we’re on a generator, and thankfully the temperatures have been above freezing so there hasn’t been much concern for us. The problem is, we’re used […]

The results of the latest University of New Hampshire Survey Center’s Granite State Poll seem to indicate that folks in New Hampshire get their news from television and newspapers. In fact, they show that a whopping 43% get their news from one source: WMUR (a local New Hampshire network). This fact alone lead me to […]

Since we’re on the subject of grammar and language, I wanted to point out what is perhaps my biggest pet peeve in everyday conversation: the phrase, “all the sudden” being used incorrectly in place of “all of a sudden.” The former is grossly incorrect, and even the latter is better stated by simply saying, “suddenly.” […]