Music

Jack Johnson is The Soundtrack of My Kids Childhood

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Today being T’s twelfth birthday I thought about this topic a bit as I put a playlist on our speakers when the girls were getting ready for school.

I’ve said more than a few times that Jack Johnson is the soundtrack of my children’s childhood so far, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Of course, we listened to plenty of other children’s songs and artists—music for the girls. But when it came to music for me, especially something relaxing, it was Jack Johnson on repeat. He became my go-to for calming playlists.

It all started with T’s first-year cake smash photo shoot. When she turned one, we arranged a session to capture her smashing the cake and just general pictures with her. That photographer ended up becoming our family photographer until we moved to England. During that first visit to her studio, she played a channel that I instantly loved. I had to ask her what it was. She told me it was a Pandora channel called Jack Johnson’s children’s music, and I was intrigued. We had Pandora at the time, so I immediately started listening to that channel.

From there, it expanded into his general music. It was soothing, easygoing, and quickly became my “happy music”—the kind I’d put on when I wanted to unwind but wasn’t in the mood for classical music.

Before we moved to England, M and I got to see him in concert at the Forest Hills Arena near our apartment. I think M still teases me occasionally for how much I play his music. Even now, when I’m not sure what to put on, Jack Johnson is still my default.

While he’s mostly my go-to, I do have playlists that fit within the same laid-back genre.

Ted Lasso’s Pop Culture Infusion

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Last night M and I watched the latest Ted Lasso episodes. We were both pleased to see that season two’s first episode was out. I find the show pretty funny and I’m trying to learn football along with Ted. Ok only sort of.

I love the Random pop culture references the writers throw in all the time. After this last episode it was pretty clear (to me) that I was going to have to put on some Gin Blossoms afterwards. Not at all ashamed to say I liked them in University and still do.

This morning as I was walking to Sainsbury’s sure enough I put on a Gin Blossims playlist. Thanks Ted.

Once I got to Sainsbury’s I realised they don’t open until 11 on a Sunday. Full disclosure I realise this when the doors would not open and the place was dark 🙂 The only way this story is related to Ted Lasso is the Sainsbury’s story happened while listening to Hey Jealousy.

I’ve been in this country for 3 1/2 years and sometimes I forget where I am. I somehow was expecting New York hours on a Sunday. On the plus side Costa Coffee was open. I don’t have my coffee before leaving for the market so I was able to sit and dictate this post to Siri.

Raffi vs Rafi

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I can no longer listen to the children’s musician Raffi. Every time I or hear a song of his I think of Rafi from the League and get the shivers thinking of him singing to my kids.

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My neighborhood kicks butt. Live music by the water tonight was actually pretty good. Too bad I had to leave for my conf call. Wondering if the concert is still going on now?

Dodging Rain

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I worked from home today. The day could have gone either way. I could have had a few meetings (that was what my schedule said) so I could get some backlogged work done, or things would come up throughout the day that would distract me from what I was aiming to do. The latter happened as I expected but hoped wouldn’t. I didn’t even realize what time it was when I called it a day and aimed to meet up with friends.

I headed into the city to meet up with some friends at Blaggards. Turned out no one showed up. Stanley texted me saying he was taking off sine no one else showed up. I was in the subway so I didn’t see it until I got there. Everyone was last minute cancelations, except Luke who I hadn’t heard from. Since I was already in the area I went to Macy’s and did some shopping. From there I headed over to the Apple Store on 5th ave.

As I got out of the subway by the Apple Store I started raining. It looked like a major thunder storm was coming in. I ran to the store just in time. I bought a iPod Nano 8GB (silver if you are curious) and an arm band to use it when exercising. Yes, I bought a new nano so I could actually try to do that exercise thing people keep talking about. It is kind of redundant to have since I have an iPhone and a 160gb iPod but each device has its own uses. The 160gb pod is currently being used as a portable hard drive and like the phone is to big for use when working out.

Before buying the pod, I browsed around to kill time while it rained. By the time I got out of the store it was raining a bit but not as bad as it was. The sky was really dark for just after 6 on a Summer afternoon. I got home and it was still only raining a bit but it looked like it was going to pour again anytime. I got really lucky getting home without an umbrella. At one point in my trek home I could have bought one (those guys selling umbrella’s know exactly where to position themselves) but I rolled the dice and made it home only slightly damp.

I ordered in and just watched some shows I had on my Tivo. I wasn’t in the mood to head back out.

The Day For Cleaning

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Depending on how you looked at it today was either a day of relaxing at home or a day of cleaning. On one hand I lounged around today, and didn’t go out, slept late and watched most off the remaining good crap on my Tivo. I also did some senseless updating of my iTunes library. Now most of the music I listen too now has album art!

On the flip side I spent the other part of the day doing two loads of laundry. Cleaning out part of my closet, and tidying up the apartment. So in some ways the day was actually very productive, and in others a total veg fest. To me that makes it the perfect Sunday!

iPod Dock’s

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For a while I have wanted to get a set of speakers I can plug in my iPod or iPhone 3G into. I haven’t gotten one yet for several reasons. The biggest one is that I have been encasing my iPod and iPhone in protective skins. They are great to protect the easily scratched devices (come on apple) but the downside is that with these cases the devices will not fit into any devices made for them. Last week I noticed my brand new (less than a month old) case was flaking its finish off. I read a review that this was possible so I rolled the dice when buying it, but since the case started falling apart I took the phone out of the case for a bit. I noticed that even though these cases don’t add too much bulk, it felt like it did. When I held the “naked” phone in my hands and used it, I was surprised how much sleeker it felt. I the remembered that all of my Treo’s never were in cases when they were in my pocket. I do have concern that the back of the phone will scratch up, but I think I will leave the cases off the phone for a while.

With no case preventing me from buying a dock or a speaker dock for my phone I started looking for a decent speaker set. The timing was perfect because recently I have wanted to listen to music in my bedroom. Now I have to put headphones on and that is a pain. My research has show me that there are tons of options. My research of reviews also showed me that many consumer electronic companies don’t get consumers. People if you make a device specifically for a GSM phone don’t suggest that you put the phone in airplane mode to avoid the feedback sound you get from speakers when the phone is plugged in. That isn’t a viable option, just a cheesy work around.

I found a ton of devices that had an equal amount of options. I find it funny that what I finally set my eyes on is the most basic of systems. I am debating on buying the Bose SoundDock Series II. The only downside I read in reviews is that it lacks features that other cheaper models might offer. Again, consumer electronic companies (in my opinion) don’t get it. Do you need to throw in all these features that many wont use to sell devices? I want to plug in my iPhone 3G and listen to crap on it through good speakers. I want to charge said iPhone in the speaker system, and maybe access the unit via a remote. This isn’t a radio, or an alarm clock, or whatever other features people want to creap in there. I know others might want those features but it is over kill for me. I want good sound. The iPhone 3G will work fine in the Bose system because they said they shielded the unit from the GSM frequencies that cause interference. It might be on the pricey side for what it does but I am tempted to go and get one. Jayson has the older model and loves it. It is a Bose after all. I don’t typically take name brands for granted, but they have lived up to their name for me so far!

So this story ends with me going to the Apple store last night and buying the Bose system. I also bought an iPhone dock for my computer. It drives me crazy that I have cables lying all over the place for my iPhone on my desk. Without the case I can plug the phone into a cradle and one more piece of clutter is off my desk.

iPod Free, Well Sort of

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For years I would travel everywhere with my iPod. Recently I had a 60gb and then a 160gb models. They aren’t the smallest but had enough storage for extra stuff so I had them vs a mini or nano. One of the reasons I bought an iPhone 3G was so I didn’t have to carry my iPod everywhere with me and just use my phone. At first I couldn’t stand that the iPhone couldn’t use the wired remote that I had with my iPhone. Because I liked skipping through songs I still used my iPod for music even though I had the iPhone. Back in October that started to change. The other day was the first time I actually took my iPod out of my bag to save weight. The only reason I use it now is as a hard drive or if my iPhone is running out of battery power.

The iPhone 3G isn’t perfect by any means but it does do allot of things right. Music and Video’s is one of them. I am happy for that. Now all I need is to be able to teather it to my laptop as a modem.

Online Radio

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Today I have been home trying to fight a cold. Instead of listening to the usual play list I have on iTunes I decided to tune into some streaming radio instead. So far it has actually been pretty good change of pace. I have used AOL Radio before, and it has been pretty good. Today I am using my almost never used XM Radio login. I can really tell the quality degradation on my radio stream vs a downloaded song. I am going to see if I can tweak the quality at all? I have been making a list of some songs that I might actually go and buy since I liked them! In that way AOL Radio is better than the XM Radio via the browser. With AOL you can click on a link and bring up the song in iTunes to buy. Of course I don’t buy from iTunes anymore (I use Amazon) but it is a good idea.

UPDATE: Apparently you can buy music you hear on XM using Napster. Unfortunately I won’t use Napster for two reasons. 1 I have a Mac. Secondly I don’t want to pay for a flat fee for music. I would rather buy the music outright. Oh well.

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