Tuesday, September 05, 2006

six sigma heart

So, there's this song called 'Carousel', by this band called As Tall As Lions. I've heard it a few times over the past couple of days because it's been recommended to me by pandora.com (more on that in a second). Anyway, there's this repeated line that actually says 'sick sick my heart' (which, in my defense, doesn't exactly make sense). But, because I spend too much time thinking about work, I kept hearing 'six sigma heart'--six sigma is a method of quality assurance, originally used in the manufacturing industry, but recently applied to the more squishy realm of customer service, and I've done a bit of reading on it without actually understanding any of it. I'm usually pretty good at understanding song lyrics, but when I strike out, I strike out big. Luckily I looked this one up, since I knew it couldn't be 'six sigma', before it got permanently ingrained in my consciousness.

Anyway, if you haven't already, you need to check out pandora.com. I read a New York Times article about it earlier this week, and now I love it. It's part of something called the Musical Genome Project, in which some company has hired a bunch of people to listen to songs and categorize them by the type of instruments used, the key, harmonies, etc. Now that they've built up a profile of tons of songs, they can custom-build a streaming playlist for you based on a song that you put into their search box. For instance, I put in 'Dani California', the latest single from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and my customized 'radio station' plays music by Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, other Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, as well as lots of bands I've never heard of and several songs that I've really enjoyed. As you're listening, you can give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to songs that you feel strongly about, so that it can continue to tailor its selections to your tastes. Brilliant, eh? Sure, some people may see this as yet another way for someone to get data about you--but I've already made peace with the fact that I love bad music, so if this is divulged publicly someday, I won't be upset at all.

I didn't finish putting my apartment in order; I would make progress for about fifteen minutes, and then take a half-hour break, so there weren't many noticeable changes today. However, I did recycle a whole bunch of cardboard boxes. Also, I made myself a ravishingly-delicious omelette; 'omelette' may be kind, since the pan was too small and so the egg got too thick to adequately fold, but 'ravishingly-delicious' is only inaccurate if you think that it's an understatement. Never again will I pay $10 for an omelette, unless I'm out with friends and don't want anything else on the menu. My omelette contained green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and cheese; I'd sauteed the peppers and onions before making the omelette, so they were soft and tasty rather than crunchy and overwhelming. Combined with two pieces of buttered toast, this was the best meal I'd had in a long time. Yay for cooking! It is sad, however, that I love cooking, but am sized out of most kitchens--I can only reach the bottom shelves of all my cabinets, which means that I'll probably get more use than I would have liked out of the stepstool that I bought. Oh well--now that I'm almost 25, I suppose I'll have to come to terms with the fact that I will never be described as 'leggy', unless there's some sort of nuclear holocaust and everyone elses' legs melt off except for mine. But in that case, everyone else will probably be so bitter that it would feel like a Pyrrhic victory. Hahaha.

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