“Between the velvet lies
There’s a truth that’s hard as steel
The vision never dies
Life’s a never ending wheel”
- Ronnie James Dio “Holy Diver”

If you haven’t heard yet, Ronnie James Dio died this morning at age 67. The cause of death hasn’t been announced, but he’s been battling stomach cancer since last year. Until that’s confirmed though, I’m just going to assume that the real cause was dragons. Those bastards.

There’s always a tendency to inflate a celebrity’s death into something more than it is, or to turn it into a personal thing. I’m certainly guilty; when Hunter S. Thompson’s died it put me into a real funk for a few weeks. It’s always terrible when anyone dies, and when it’s someone who’s made a major impact in a lot of lives, it’s easy to treat it as a big thing. But I don’t think that’s fair.

We, by which I mean pretty much all heavy metal fans, will remember Dio for the music we love. He’s in that rarefied echelon of artists whose influence can be seen in almost everyone who came after him. He’s absolutely one of the best vocalists of all time, and he helped define the style and substance of the entire genre. When we say things are “metal,” we’re saying it’s something Dio would have done.

He also popularized the devil horns, which is almost on par with inventing the high five.

In a world where most frontmen are histrionic man-children, from Ozzy Osbourne to David Lee Roth to Axl Rose and anyone else you can name, Dio stands out for never trying to be bigger than the music. Sure, he had the outrageous costumes and over-the-top videos (see below), but that always felt fun.

I guess my point with all this is that Dio never needed to be anything more than what he was in life, so let’s not make him something more in death. I’m just gonna crank up Holy Diver and rock out the way he would have wanted.

]]> http://www.seitzwrites.com/2010/05/16/the-world-just-got-a-little-less-metal/feed/ 0 http://www.seitzwrites.com/2010/05/08/seit-recommends-the-zune-hd/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seit-recommends-the-zune-hd http://www.seitzwrites.com/2010/05/08/seit-recommends-the-zune-hd/#comments Sat, 08 May 2010 23:07:42 +0000 Seitz http://www.seitzwrites.com/?p=497
Sub-recommendations: Bison B.C., Shure SHR840s, cheap furniture

I made some misguided decision that I wasn’t going to use this space to review things. But clearly I’ve enjoyed writing about the things I love (or the case of Peter Travers, hate) so I might as well get around to doing a post about my single favorite gadget. I bought this sweet little drop of awesome way back in September and the intervening months have been enough to convince me that Imade the right decision. Enough so to enforce my opinions in blog form at least.

What you need to know about the Zune HD as far as statistics and specifications are concerned can be found on the Zune website. I’ve got the 32GB model, because the 64GB wasn’t out at the time and they don’t make 128GB. Thoughts follow:

By means of background, I’ll have you know that I once owned this thing:

The Diamond Rio PMP300: It’s the “fake Holy Grail from Last Crusade
that killed a guy” of MP3 players.

I had this bad boy back in the sixth grade (1999 for those unfamiliar with my biography). It could fit ten songs, provided they all held their breath and behaved themselves in the back seat. The display only told you the song number. It connected to the computer via a parallel port. It was bigger than an iPod. I loved it to death.

I went on to own an iRiver, a Rio Volt MP3CD player, a Creative Zen Touch, and finally an iPod (Video, maybe?). So I’ve seen the lows and supposed highs of the portable media player market. I also have a music collection that, as of this writing, is just about to hit 120GB, a surprisingly large portion of which came from legitimate sources.

So after all that, I can say unequivocally that the Zune HD is the best music player I’ve ever used.

Now I stress “music player” because while the Zune HD also does video, pictures, radio, podcasts, internet and apps, 95 percent of my usage is music and music is what it does best. The reason it does music best is because it has the Zune Pass, and that’s the sort of “Game, Bitches!” feature that Microsoft should be pushing front and center of any marketing campaign involving the entire range of Zune products. Because it isn’t, let me explain:

For $15 a month, I get unlimited music.

Before I bought it my inner naysayer assumed that I would never be able to find the music I wanted (Metal) on the service. I told myself that I’d return it and buy an iPod Touch the next day if they didn’t have any good metal available. They did, so I didn’t.

(A shortlist of bands I’ve found and fallen in love with since September: Between the Buried and Me, Pig Destroyer, Arsis, Keelhaul, Nachtmystium, Katatonia, the aforementioned/pictured Bison B.C., Woe of Tyrants, and whatever else Decibel features each month.)

I say this not to label it as a satanic hellforge from which spews forth the rumblings of the dark one unto this mortal plane (feel free to use that though Microsoft!), but to illuminate that if I could find all the metal I wanted on there, imagine how much of whatever lame bullshit you listen to that you can find. That $15 also gets you 10 downloads that you can keep forever each month. I assume that this is how the Zune Pass has always worked but again, Microsoft never pushed the Zune strongly enough as an infinite music box from the get go, relying instead on a brown finish that they’ll never live down and a “Hey guys, us too!” social feature.

Part of that could also be that until the Zune HD, it wasn’t an “infinite music box.” Because until the HD came out, you could not, in fact, download infinite music from the box. And that’s called a transition, which I’ll use to brings us to the Wi-Fi.

With Wi-Fi, you can connect to a network and search through the marketplace from the player.  Which means you don’t need to sync the player to add music. Which means I’ll be able to download Nachtmystium’s new album Addicts: Black Meddle Part 2 (June 8th) and listen to it while taking a shit. Technology rules.

In addition, whenever you download any music, it automatically pulls in artist photos that show up as backgrounds, as well as a biography (usually from allmusic.com), both of which you can view offline. That sounds lamer than it actually is, but trust me that it does improve the overall experience.

You can also download apps straight to the player. And for those of you who couldn’t see the dismissive wanking motion I was making as I typed that, let me explain: The Zune apps feature is a joke. I don’t even want to count, but I think there’s 12. Twelve Apps. That’s more than the number of wins Jamarcus Russell got as a starter in Oakland, it’s also less than the number of donuts he ate in the time it took me to come up with this joke.

There are a couple of apps worth having. Audiosurf Tilt is a fun one that generates a tilt-sensitive game that’s a cross between Rainbow Road and Guitar Hero out of any song (which is especially fun with Napalm Death’s “You Suffer.”) There’s also a bowling game, and Project Gotham Ferrari. And a calculator that does standard and scientific modes! (Seriously, my forearm is killing me.) The Twitter, Facebook and Weather apps are ok if you have wi-fi available, but useless without.

Oddly, while you can download apps and music straight to the player, you can’t download podcasts or videos. I can kind of understand the video, because you actually have to pay for those. But the podcasts I don’t understand. There is sort of a workaround, in that you can wirelessly sync the player with your computer over wi-fi (not bluetooth), but you have to be on the same network to do it. So if you were, say, at work or on vacation you wouldn’t be able to do it.

And last of the media components is that most cutting-edge of technologies, Radio! Yes, Radio: You too can hear voices beamed over the airwaves without any wires. Boy that President Roosevelt sure is swell, isn’t he? But seriously, it does pick up HD radio stations, which means you can double or triple the sadness of a dying medium on a single spectrum. And since Boston has two NPR news stations now, I can get a double dose of liberal entitlement on a daily basis (the two phrases I hate myself most for ever saying are 1.) “I heard a story on NPR this morning about …”  and 2.) “There was an article in the New Yorker about …”).

There’s also an Internet browser, and it does what it does. Occasionally I’ll use it to look up album release dates.

But enough with all that, let’s talk software, and show you all what you really came here to see: Hardware nudity!

First up, this is the homescreen. It really doesn’t come across in the pictures how amazing the OLED screen is. The blacks are blacker than the blackest blacks you’ve ever seen on a device, and the colors come across brilliantly. The font for all of the options is a generous enough that you can read it clearly and tap on the option you want cleanly.

The Homescreen.

Next, one of my favorite features is the music navigation screen. When you go into the music screen you get a list of artists, and you can tap on the heading letters to get to this screen. Tap on any of these letters, and go to that section. It’s so stupidly simple that it’s brilliant, and it works better than the usual “scroll through the letters” functionality of other players.

I don’t know why, but I love the look of this navigation system.

I showed this same screen back at the top, but this version gives you a better sense of the size of the player in reference to my ape mitts.

The “currently playing” screen.

You can see two of the hardware buttons in this one. On the face of the player is the Home button, which takes you back to the homescreen that I showed earlier. On the left side, near my thumb, is the media button, which brings up the screen showed here. This is where you can change the volume, or skip forward/back, and play/pause. I think it’d be nice to have a hardware volume rocker at least, but this isn’t bad at all. (There’s also a power button up top.)

On-screen volume and playback controls.

Another shot of the “Now Playing” screen, this time with the player looking a little more modest in a DLO Action Jacket silicone case. I was a little bothered that the 32GB player only came in silver (unless you want to custom order it) but this renders the point moot. I also picked up a screen protector, as much to improve traction as to protect the screen.

Action Jacket silicone cover.

And modesty is out the window with this shot of the player’s naked backside. You can see the Zune insignia, along with the industrial-looking screws. You can’t see it too well, but the back is all brushed aluminum.

The backside, with Zune insignia.

And finally is a shot of the player in the desktop dock. They do make a dock that will let you play 720p video through a TV, but this is the basic one that just hooks up to my stereo. It also charges the player.

The Dock.

So I think I’ve covered this thing as well as I can for what I use it for. I’d love to talk more about the video playback, but I don’t watch videos on it (I need the space for music). I’ve also said nothing about the social feature, but that’s already more than I want to say about it. Point being: For me it’s perfect. If you’re looking for an amazing music player with some other extra features, it’ll be perfect for you too. If apps are more important, get an iPod Touch. I hate to make it sound that simple, but it really is.

Programming Note: Yes, the previous post wound up being a little too ambitious. I do have a few more gadgets that I’ll be writing about, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

So yeah, I’m back. Let’s not make too big a deal out of it. I’m still working for Nieman Reports. I’m still bumming around Boston, though I now live in Somerville. I’ve officially owned this domain for more than a year, and I figured that it’s worth doing something with it again as long as I’m paying for it. My goal is to write some kind of essay at least every two weeks. Will I miss that? Most likely, but I think it’s important to have goals all the same.

In other news, the following things exist: seitzwrites.tumblr.com and twitter.com/seitzwrites. The former is going to be used for pictures and other random thoughts, while the latter will not be used, but is registered so that no one else can have it. I’m territorial like that.

Image via Metalsucks.net

So I took  a couple days off there, but I’m back with the cover art for the upcoming Skeletonwitch Album “Breathing the Fire,” which showed up on MetalSucks the other day. I’d lay more praise upon the band, but I think I already did that plenty a few months back. Besides, I think those guys already summed it up well enough for me.

Which brings me to my next point. I’ve been making that whole Google migration over the last couple of weeks, and I’m pretty damn impressed with all of it so far. In fact, I was completely blown away when I discovered Google Apps. It completely changed my whole concept of what Google has been doing, and frankly, I  think they’re on the right path.

The main idea is to use things like GMail and Google Docs for the Apps concept (basically it’s a way to load these online applications as if they were programs on the hard drive, not online), but Chrome lets you make an App out of anything. For instance, I’ve got the WordPress Dashboard saved to my desktop as an App, so I can launch right into that and post updates any time I want (not that I use it that often, but still).

The other App that I’m big on now is the music player from Lala.com, which is pretty much the greatest site ever with the worst name ever. Basically, my music is almost all on the internet now, so I can listen wherever I want  (without needing the external hard drive to carry all 103 gigabytes). I highly recommend checking it out. I’m basically off of iTunes now, thanks to this. You can even buy web only songs for 10 cents each (I swear I don’t work for them).

Obviously, this isn’t actually that huge. I mean, essentially, it’s just a shortcut. But for some reason, looking at things this way makes so much more sense to me. Like I said, it’s about changing the way I use the internet.

Alright, this has been a pretty scatterbrained post so far. Thanks for bearing with me, but I think I’m just going to close it off here.

Aside from GMail, this is really my first foray into Google’s non-search features. I’ve alway been a little leery of their online based apps, though I honestly couldn’t tell you why. Things I save online are probably safer than on my 4-year-old laptop.

But I’m right in the process of downloading and setting up a lot more google-based software. I’m starting to realize that I might as well get onboard with what everyone else has already started doing.

There are two big reasons for this:

For one, I’m looking for a new computer. I might end up just getting a netbook, in which case I’ll need to rely more on online software and applications for this kind of stuff. Even if I don’t go the mini route, I’d still like to be up to date on what kind of technology is available before I start fresh on a new computer. It might help eliminate some of the unneccesary software that I usually end up downloading or installing.

The other big reason is my new job. We’re working on the fall issue now, and I’ve been fact checking articles that deal with things like “cloud computing” and other social media aspects. Basically, it got me realizing that, for as much as I profess to enjoy technology, I’m pretty much a year or two behind.

So my hope is that, bolstered by the Harvard money I’m going to be making, I can start catching back up with the rest of society on the hardware side. In the meantime I’ll work on picking up the pace with software.

Stay tuned…

At the risk of disparaging my previous employers, but wanting to explain my absense, let me just say that the newspaper gig crushed any desire I had to do extra writing. The fact that I’m not hunched over my keyboard writing up a meeting on deadline tonight is still freaking me out a little bit. But honestly, it was a fun job and I’m glad I did it. I honestly wouldn’t have quit if it weren’t for the new opportunity that showed up.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What do I bring away from three months (honestly, it seemed a lot longer than that) in the fast-paced world of small town journalism? For one, I feel much more confident about my ability to work in this field. I was really never completely sure while in school, but just jumping right into it like I did was a great way to shock my reporting skills into action. The other thing, and this is something that I’ve heard about but never really believed in, is that I get a huge rush out of writing a good story. Part of it is the fact that I had competition (The Daily News Transcript), making it that much more enjoyable to get a big scoop (as much as those exist in Norwood). The other part is just watching all my thoughts coalesce into a coherent story. It’s tough to explain, but seeing the final output, and having it not suck, is just an awesome feeling.

The downside, though, was a seemingly endless string of late nights, along with  sitting through two hour meetings and getting nothing (which only happened a few times) and the pure aggravation of not being able to get the person I needed to talk to on the phone for days at a time. Oh, and the pay. That really killed the fun for me.

Although, Norwood was a great place to start my career. The people there were either crazy or brilliant at what they did, and there was no shortage of great quotes, characters and stories to cover. I realized, as my last two weeks ticked by, that everybody I dealt with on a regular basis had pretty much lived in town for their entire lives. Given that the average age of this group was definitely north of 50, I was just a blip on the radar to them. Kind of puts things in perspective, I guess.

So anyway, I’m now working for Harvard (technically as an independent consultant) at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. I work normal, nine-to-five hours, and I get paid more, so I should be back onto this blogging business more often now. My last big hurdle is tracking down an apartment for the fall, but other than that, things are going well.

I’ll try to write more about the new job in the coming days, but for tonight I just wanted to pull a Favre and announce my unretirement. React accordingly.

Does anyone who a priest who’s certified to do electrical work? I’ll also settle for an electrician who can recite The Exorcist by heart, seeing as that’d probably be easier to come by.

(Sorry folks, I just haven’t had the time or energy to finish a full update in a while.)

So what have I been doing in the two weeks since I last wrote here? Well, if you read my last post, you probably have a pretty good idea of where I was and what I was doing, but I suppose some sort of follow up is order. So I’ll address my latest activities in a wholly arbitrary manner selected only to assert my editorial dominance.

First of all, I’m working full time (plus some) and, surprisingly, it takes more effort to write up a blog post after a day spent writing than it does after a day of doing nothing. I’m going to stick by my decision to not write about my job, suffice to say that it’s going well and I’m slowly getting back into the groove of writing news stories on a regular basis.

As a result of this, my long-gestating Phase II of the “I Hate Peter Travers” project will have to wait until I find the time/motivation to finish designing the website. Sorry to all those waiting on the IPO.

In fact, the only other writing I’ve been doing lately has been some PR stuff I did for my good friend and technological consultant, Paul Rausch, owner of Greenwire IT. Since I get a lot of hits from Florida, I figure it’s worth giving him an extra plug here as well. If you’re anywhere in the Southwest Florida Area, I cannot recommend this man enough. He helped me set up this site, and I’m willing to bet that he’s one of the only IT guys in the world who can set up your computer, cook you a delicious meal and educate you on the undertones of racism that fueled the Franco-Prussian war at the same time. And do it in your choice of four languages.

But since I’m now working full time in a town 30 minutes away, I also had to make my epic 1500+ mile road trip from Fort Myers to Boston, by way of Washington, DC. The first 1000 or so was done in one straight shot, by the end of which I was no longer able to hold a clear thought in my head. I was basically focusing everything on driving, especially during hour 14 when I was cruising through Richmond alongside every trucker on 95. Good Times.

By the way, Washington, DC is an awful driving city. I already hated rotaries, and I did not need to deal with DuPont circle after 16 hours on the highway.

I also got a chance to head up to Baltimore to see the Rays take on the Orioles. I was, of course, dissapointed to see the Rays lose, but Evan Longoria hit two home runs, so it was kind of worth it. Camden Yards is also the nicest stadium I’ve ever been to, especially with $6 admission on college night. To hell with all the tradition, they really need to rebuild Fenway so I can watch my out-of-town team in better comfort.

In other news, today was the Boston Marathon, which, in years past, would have meant drinking enough to make watching people run for hours interesting. Instead, I worked.

And finally, BU won the national championship. It was quite possibly the greatest single sporting event I’ve ever seen, much less attended. For those who don’t pay attention to such things, you missed out. Trailing 3-1 to Miami (Ohio) with a minute to go, the Terriers proceeded to rip of two goals, go into overtime, and win on as flukey a shot as I’ve ever seen. As is the custom around these parts I went out drinking in the same bar as the team after the game. Go me.

Fun fact: This was the fifth national championship won between UF and BU in the last four years. UF and BU also have two of the oldest registered .edu domain names on the internet (ufl.edu and bu.edu, respectively), and both were registered on the exact same day.

But as cool as it was to see BU win another National Championship, I feel like that weekend was the official end of my time at BU. Sure, I technically graduated back in May, but I was one of the only people I knew graduating. As far as I’m concerned, that was as much for my family than it was for me. But being in DC and seeing that game with all my friends gave as good a sense of closure as I could ever expect to get from college. I’m ready to move on now.

In the words of Roger Murtaugh, I’m getting too old for this shit.

Well, I finally did it. Against all odds, and in desperate need of a better excuse for not writing on my blog, I got a job. Starting Monday April 13, I’m going to be a reporter for the Norwood Record, located in the town of Norwood, just south of Boston. This has clearly been a long time coming, and, depending on my workload, it may mean that I’ll be spending less time on the blog, and more time getting paid. It’s an okay deal, in my mind.

Aside from the workload, I’m not sure what this actually means for the future of the site. I don’t want to consciously change my content to any extent, but I really don’t want to lose my job because of anything I write on this site. In all likelihood, this will probably be one of, if not the, only times I’m actually going to write about my work, unless something epic happens that absolutely must be related.

But I’m not starting the job until next Monday, so why is it going to be quiet this week? Well, two reasons. I’m flying home tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to get my car, and I’m going to spend all of Wednesday bombing up the east coast to Washington, DC, because this weekend is the NCAA Frozen Four at the Verizon Center. I’ve got my ticket, got a couch to crash on, and I’m hungry for a national championship.

On a related note, the Hobey Baker (College Hockey’s Heisman) finalists were named on Friday. The three finalists include BU’s own Matt Gilroy and Colin Wilson, as well as former-Northeastern (he just jumped ship for the Penguins) goalie Brad Thiessen. I’m a little worried that vote splitting between the two terriers might work in Thiessen’s favor, but Gilroy absolutely deserves this award. Dude’s been the heart and soul of the team, and the fact that we’re in D.C. while Northeastern is back in Roxbury can only help us.

Some form of post-game recap will surely be forthcoming, most likely to be written in an unintelligle string of vowels.

He is, or was, a girl’s soccer coach in Scituate, Massachusetts. He, like so many other champions of greatness in the history of this fine country, lost his job for speaking the truth in a letter to parents before the season. He also renamed their team “Green Death” and compared the play he expected to Michael Vick’s pit bulls. I first heard about his story on Deadspin, who got their details from the Patriot-Ledger (where you can get the full text of his email to parents). I then saw it on PTI this afternoon, and, if my knowledge of how these things work is correct, he will soon be quoted by internet commenters and SportsCenter anchors in equal measure (See: “Boom goes the dynamite”).

And if he gets enough publicity, he’s just about guaranteed to be coaching another youth sports team, or writing a column, for someone who has a sense of humor. I’d expect him to replace Calipari in Memphis, personally.

If I were one of those parents, I’d just be happy that the only Law & Order: SVU character he resembles is Chris Meloni.