Mar 06, 1998, 11:25am

Yield, baby.

Finally got around to buying the latest PJ release, and like every single release before I don't like it yet.

It's no secret that one of my fave bands are Pearl Jam. But PJ is different with me. When I pick up the latest Hip CD, (usually no later than a day or two after release), I take to it immediately, like most of the songs instantly. Not so with Eddie's band. Every single PJ release has had to grow on me. It took me almost a month to like VS. It took me over three months to get into Vitalogy. And it only took me about a half dozen "listens" to start liking No Code.

So why do I do it? Why would I keep stabbing, month after month in some cases, at a series of songs to develop a "like" for them? Well actually, I don't see it that way. I see it as letting the songs grow a bit. I have a theory - I think that Pearl Jam songs are released before their time... and they need to age a bit. At least they do with me.

Now, not a week goes by where No Code, Vitalogy, Ten, or Vs. don't get timeplay on my CD. I think the maturing process helps me appreciate and genuinely like the music more. I think it also makes it a bit timeless for me. In fact, as I type this, I just finished a session with Ten, and now I'm listening to Yield, the latest release. And I still don't like it much! Weird, eh? I'll follow up on this maybe in a month or two.

Hey, gots big plans for around here. I've actually been working on quite a few things, and big things are coming this way soon... heheheh. One is a photoessay I'm working on. All the images are taken now, and a lot of the photoessay's sitegraphics are done, but the tough part is stringing my words together with the images, and getting the right feel I want. So it might be a few weeks still.

A teaser for you though - I'm basically a night person, and this shoot is definitely a night thing...

Other odds and ends - I'm working on that coffee section boxorocks buddy... it's coming soon!!! Also, I've got about 300 (!!) responses to my quiz to wade through... I think making it anonymous really boosted the response. But I'm a bit wary of posting the results - it means people won't fill it out anymore, and I'll have to come up with something new again! :-). Oh that's alright. Look for the definitive tabulation, complete with tables and charts, to show off all the quiz responses! It's coming soon.

Other things. I'm dusting off some stories I have in my local archive, so there'll be a real swamp of new content around here soon. Hope you enjoy it. Again, look for this real soon... like maybe even this weekend, the flood will start. Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say that Megan was my determined 50,000th visitor to this site! Though my counter in the past has been horribly inaccurate on other sites, and for a while I had it tied to my rant page because my logs show a lot of you enter the site on this page, heck, I'm still amazed it's anything near this total. Thanks most, if not all of you, for your patronage. I've met a lot of cool people through this site (ignoring some of the idjits I've had my fun with) so overall, it's been a pretty cool experience for me.

Oh yeah, forgot this one - I got myself a bread machine. I've been wanting one for years, but Jean always pooh-pooh'ed the suggestion... "they take up too much counter space"... "they cost too much"... "you'll use it once and then ignore it"... Well, I bought one finally, because it was at a factory refurbished sale, so I got a $150 model for 69 bucks. Since I bought it about a week ago, I've made about 8 loaves of bread, including french, 2 herb breads, 2 banana breads, and some plain ole delicious white bread. I'm sort of in the habit of setting the machine on the timer, so when I wake up, I got ultra fresh hot bread. What makes it really really cool is two days ago, when I didn't do this, Jean goes, "so is there any bread today?" when I told her no, she was very disappointed... not because she thought I was starting to "ignore" the machine, but because she wanted the bread!! heheheh.

Well, I think this is going to be a short one today. HEY!! I'm in the market for a good quality, cheap notebook computer. It doesn't have to be some kick ass P233 or anything - basically, it has to be able to run win95 (so that's a 486dx 75 minimum, prefer Pentium though), run 800x600 256 colors minimum, have a cd-rom (4x and up), have at least a 10.4 TFT or 11.2 DSTN screen, at least 810mb hd, and at least 16mb of memory. A modem would be nice too. If you've got something like this you want to unload, get in touch with me... let's deal.

Oh oh. I think I'm starting to like this one song...wish list... oh oh... oh maybe it's just passing... so till next time.... thanks for stopping by!

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Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
Photos from my trip to Algonquin Park this fall with my Mom and two brothers.

War Stories

Making Snow for the Fortress
One of the worst jobs I ever had... till I got out.

Webiffied

Tools I Use
The tools I use to build websites and lead a tech life.

iPod and iTunes Offline

iMark's iTunes and iPod isn't iPlaying anything right iNow.

Most Recent Songs

Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
It's all new, as of March, 2002. My personal coffee obsession site.

WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D