Yesterday was great - the kind of Saturday you're supposed to have after a long work week. As Ice Cube would say, "It was a good day."
We went down to Stevens Point to test drive a 2006 PT Cruiser (a fad car, yes, but very functional for our needs and available at a great price), caught a Wisconsin Woodchucks game, and I received the complete Electrelane discography in the mail thanks to Felicia (ain't she great?).
As great as this weekend has been, next weekend should be even better as we'll be trekking down to Madison to catch The National at the High Noon Saloon.
News: Don't work too hard; it's bad for you
My friends and I like to remember the sage advice given by our high school physics teacher: "Work smarter, not harder." And according to a recent article by Penelope Trunk, there's some truth to that maxim:
Penelope Trunk's column this week is an excerpt from her book, "Brazen Careerist." Chapter 12, "Don't be the hardest worker," offers ways to avoid long hours and job burnout.
It's hard to leave the office at a reasonable time of day when your workplace culture centers on long hours. But the cost of not leaving work is high: a half-built life and career burnout. Of course, if you never work long hours, you will never appear committed enough to get to the top ranks. So your job is to work enough hours to look committed but not so many hours that you risk your personal life and your ability to succeed over the long haul.
People cannot work full-speed until they die. Pace yourself so you don't burn out before you reach your potential. But don't blame your long hours on your boss, your CEO, or your underlings. Someone who does not make a conscious, organized effort to take responsibility for the number of hours they work can be thrown off course by anyone. But the person who systematically follows the steps below will not be thrown off course, even by a workaholic boss in a workaholic industry:
Concentrate on quality of work over quantity. The person who builds a career on doing the most work commits to living on a treadmill. The work will never be done, and you will become known among your co-workers as someone who never turns down an assignment. Read: dumping ground. Quality is what matters. People don't lose a job for not working unpaid overtime, they lose a job for not performing well at the most important times; and a resume is not a list of hours worked, it is a list of big accomplishments.
Know the goals of your job. You need to know the equivalent of a home run in your job. Get a list of goals from your boss, and understand how they fit into the big picture. Judge if your work is high quality by what people need from you and how they measure success. Be sure to get goals that are quality oriented and not hours oriented. Suggest replacing, "Devote eight hours a week to cold-calling" to "Find six qualified leads in three months."
Find the back door. Figure out what criteria people use for promotion. It is never only how many hours you work. In many professions you need to work a lot of hours, but there is always a way to be impressive enough to cut back on hours. In the realm of superstars, achievement is based on quality over quantity. Figure out how to turn out extremely impressive work so that you can get away with fewer hours. For example, if you're a lawyer, you could pick up one, very important client for the firm, and then cut back a little on your hours. Continued...
Google Is Making You Dumber
The search engine giant has so much information and is making it so easy for us to obtain it, that it discourages traditional avenues of learning such as studying, doing one’s own field work, and taking classes. Pro or con?
Pro: Fragmented Facts
by Jakob Nielsen, Phd, Nielsen Norman Group
I have a very popular Web site, so why do I continue to write books? And why do I stick with an even older medium and gather people around the flickering light of the campfire (okay, slide projector) to speak to them in person at an annual conference?
I do it because old media are highly superior to the Web for learning about complicated topics. The Web fragments information into tiny nuggets that can be digested during a two-minute visit to a Web site.
Google (GOOG) is your savior when you wish to ascertain an obscure fact, such as when King Christian IV built the Round Tower in Copenhagen. Searching for "Christian IV year Round Tower built" brings up the correct answer (1642) in the summaries for the top two search hits. No need to click through. Google has built the perfect answer engine by repurposing the labors of millions of authors. [READ MORE]
MUSIC NEWS
Beastie Boys to 'Mix Up' New Album
The New York rabble-rousers return to rock roots with forthcoming record.
Now that Bad Brains have built a Nation and returned towering Beastie Boy MCA, a.k.a. Adam Yauch, the Boys have kick started their PR machine, announcing The Mix Up, the trio's forthcoming album tentatively dropping this June, NME.com reports. "We play instruments on the whole album, as opposed to sampling. There's more rock on there," Mike D told NME.com. "If you know us you can trace the influences and they're not completely surprising. Someone who listens to us casually might think 'What the hell are these guys doing?'"
Fans hoping to sneak a peek at the band's new material can catch the Boys' performance Labor Day weekend at George, WA's Sasquatch! Festival or July 7 at the London leg of Live Earth, Al Gore's worldwide concert aiming to draw attention to global warming. "It's come to the point where drastic measures have to be taken now. To really create a mass consciousness of what needs to be done, mass action, it's gonna take mass awareness. And these huge concerts around the globe are probably one of the best means of doing so," Mike D said about the necessity of the Live Earth concerts.
You can check out what some thought of their performance at the Sasquatch Music Festival by dropping by BrooklynVegan.
I don't know about you, but I'm not entirely excited about an instrumental album fro the Beastie Boys. They plan on releasing a second version of it with vocals from themselves and guests later on, but after the initial instrumental drop. I'm sure some college kids smoking up will enjoy the all instrumental experiment, but I for one will wait for the rhythms and rhymes that accompany them.
Featured Album: Bad Religion, How Could Hell Be Any Worse? (2004)
Being a Bad Religion fan and realizing the other day that I have very little in terms of Bad Religion music, I sought out a few online record stores to correct that problem. I stumbled upon this digitally re-mastered version of "How Could Hell Be Any Worse?" which takes the place of the "80-85" album which is now out of print.
According to Epitaph,
It contains the exact same track listing as "80-85" and now has the packaging it should have had in the first place. With this album a fuse was lit, leading to an explosion that spawned a new religion: Bad Religion. This, their second record and first LP is nothing short of genius. Shattered-glass guitar riffs, fast, furious drums, and a 16 year old Greg Graffin's voice for the ages. The coalescence of lyrical intellect and savage music make for a sound seldom (if ever) heard before. The impact of this record still resonates to this day. Classic tracks like "Fuck Armageddon...This Is Hell," "American Dream," and "The Voice Of God Is Government" are as crucial and socially lucid as the day they were created in a southern California garage. When the greatest punk records of all-time are discussed, How Could Hell Be Any Worse is sure to be mentioned.
Here's a few tracks off the record to jog your punk rock memory:
Bad Religion - "American Dream"
Bad Religion - "Voice of God is Government"
Bad Religion - "Damned to Be Free"
Bad Religion - "Politics"
Featured Artist: Moorebeck Stellar
Somewhere in Madison, Wisconsin there are two 20-year-olds making music that you will most likely never hear, although it wouldn't hurt you if you did, in fact, it would be your pleasure. Elliot Kozel and Andrew Jansen are the confederates behind the soothing grooves of Moorebeck Stellar. With nicknames like Beat Slave and Saucebox it's hard not to imagine a configuration of sampled hip-hop from amateur DJs. It�s also difficult to figure out what their intentions are, especially when they proclaim the album wants to make people do things like dance and party and make-out with each other, when the music is anything, but dance party music. Down-tight/In Bloom is a downbeat affair of electronic/organic mediations that unwind best during downtime.
Nearly every track is centered around a steady beat, perfected for a twilight cruise, not far from the more laid-back car commercials, save for track six, Deep Vein Thrombosis, which trades in the DJ Shadow trance for Autechre hysterics. Down-tight/In Bloom definitely succeeds in mood, and for the first half each song comes in with the flow of a wave, but after the frenzy of Deep Vein Thrombosis downtime turns into a downer. If tracks seven through twelve were switched around with tracks one through six it would still be the same situation, as it's not deconstructing quality, but the exasperated balance of mid-tempo quality...[READ MORE]
Moorebeck Stellar - "Inside Your Mind"
Mooreback Stellar - "Letter to Estelle Fletcher"
Mooreback Stellar - "Deep Vein Thrombosis"
Mooreback Stellar - "Jadis Queen"
Do you or do you not love the new White Stripes single, "Icky Thump"? I do. It's crunchy like my morning cereal.
White Stripes - "Icky Thump"
How about a new track from The New Pornographers as well:
The New Pornographers - "My Rights Versus Yours" from the forthcoming CD/LP 'Challengers', in stores August 21. Even better (or worse?), here's a mashup of the song:
DJ STV SLV - My Chips Versus Yours
If you haven't been listening to The Heartless Bastards yet, you should be.
Erika of the Heartless Bastards performs on WOXY Lounge Acts
Check out their live lounge set on WOXY.com: DOWNLOAD
Also on WOXY's Lounge Acts Series:
Ted Leo
Silversun Pickups
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.