An open letter to Jim Koch
Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 01:36 PM
I’ve been really enjoying the Samuel Adams Brewmaster’s Collection, but I have a minor complaint. Why the hell does this collection include the Boston Lager and Boston Ale?? Don’t get me wrong, I like both of those beers. But, I can get them anytime, anywhere. The other beers in the Brewmaster’s Collection are not so easy to come by. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen the other beers available for sale on their own, outside of a “mix-pack”.
There are some really great beers in this collection. However, with the inclusion of the Boston Lager and Boston Ale, it means that you only get two of each style of beer. I would much rather have three each of the other styles than to have the two more common beers included in this. Again, I can get the Lager and Ale anywhere.
How do the two most common Sam Adams beers even warrant being a part of the “Brewmaster’s Collection”? I know they are your “flagship” beers, but, come on. Do they really stand up next to the Scotch Ale or the Honey Porter? (FYI, my absolute favorite in this collection is the Scotch Ale - I really do wish I could find this for sale separately.) Again, nothing against the Boston Lager and Ale, but I would so much rather have more of the other styles of beer in this collection.
So please, next time around consider leaving out the more common beers in these otherwise magnificent collections.
More site updates
Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 04:47 PM
I’ve updated the Phone Themes page to use the Lightbox effect for the previews. I think it’s so much better than the old pop-up window. And, the code in the actual HTML to call the effect is so much simpler!
I’m debating on whether or not to do this with the posters page. I know I need to update some of the images on the poster page first, many of them are of poor quality and/or are too small. That in itself is going to be a project. The real issue with using lightbox on the posters page is making sure that the images are small enough. As it is now, with them opening in a new window, you can scroll down to see the whole poster. With lightbox, if the image is too big, you won’t be able to see the “Close” box at the bottom. Even though you should be able to scroll down to it, I don’t expect most people would figure that out right away, and therefore not know how to close the image.
If I do scale the images down, what should I set as the standard size? At this point I have to start making assumptions as to what the lowest resolution people visiting my site might have their browsers set at. If I go too small with the images, then you can’t see the detail of the poster, which kind of defeats the purpose. Unfortunately, I think there’s probably a lot of people out there with their resolution set to 1024x786. Add to that the Windows people who have a bunch of ridiculous toolbars loaded in IE (which take up way too much screen real estate), and you’re left with very little room to play with.
Ah, the perils of web design for the person who actually considers how the design might affect, and be affected by, the users visiting the site.
Site Updates
Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 11:20 AM
I have the Sony Ericsson phone themes on line now. I had to play around with the java script in order to get the preview to work properly under ExpressionEngine.
The desktops will come next, and should be fairly easy to do. I want to create thumbnails, so you don’t have to click on a particular desktop to see what it actually is. I just need to get around to doing that. I’m debating on whether or not to have them download as a .zip package with all of the available resolutions, or keep them as individual .jpg files. I also need to get around to creating larger sizes of the desktops, since large monitors are becoming more and more ubiquitous.
After that (or maybe before, depending on my whims), I plan on implementing a new method for the previews of both the phone themes and the posters. There’s a really cool java script call Lightbox that I want to try out. I need to test it with ExpressionEngine, but I see no reason why it shouldn’t work.
Mmmm… Vanilla
Thursday, March 01, 2007 - 06:16 PM
I’ve been drinking this Vanilla Porter from Breckenridge Brewery that is just amazing. Drinking this beer is like drinking a root beer, or sarsaparilla soda. I highly recommend this if you’re into porters and stouts, or if you like spiced and/or flavored beers.
I also recommend pretty much anything else by Breckenridge (especially their Oatmeal Stout). They’re a really fantastic brewery.
It’s the music.
Monday, February 26, 2007 - 12:41 PM
I found an interesting article called Why Americans Hate Jazz that sums up a lot of what I find wrong with the way people listen to music. The author makes some interesting points on how most people (Americans in particular) only listen to the lyrics of a song, and not the actual music. This is something I’ve noticed myself, and as a musician I find quite infuriating. He even talks about something I’ve experienced countless times, and that is playing your own music for friends and family only to have them talk while the music is playing. (You cannot listen if you are talking. This is one of my biggest pet-peeves. If I’m playing something for you, I want you to listen to it. This even makes me mad when I’m playing music from other artists that I want someone to hear.)
Yesterday we (Call it Karma) were rehearsing and talking about some of the reviews we’ve gotten for one of our songs over at Garageband.com. The song in question is Secret. Even though the song was well liked, many of the people said that it gets repetitive, referring to the bridge, where Erin repeats “I’ve got a secret that I cannot say” with variations on the way she sings the phrase. I felt that this was because most people do not understand the concept of the voice as an instrument, and were missing the point of the bridge. Erin’s voice is just another instrument at that point in the song, and she’s improvising on a musical phrase, with Paul’s trumpet line playing around what she’s doing. It’s a give and take (call and answer) between two instruments, one of which happens to be the human voice. Most people simply don’t get that, because they are only listening to the lyrics and not the music.
I guess this is why certain styles of music only appeal to some people (musicians in particular). The author of the article mentions specifically Jazz, but you could easily make the same case for Jam Bands and Progressive Rock. People don’t really “get” these styles of music, because the lyrics tend to take a back seat to the music, and they demand attention from the audience. Of course a 10 minute improvisation is not going to make sense to some one who doesn’t actively listen to what the musicians are doing.