I posted the piece below and decided to see how quickly things “show up” on the internet. Thirty seconds later I entered “Yahara River Valley Boys” into a Google search engine and BAM! it was there. I went to PIPL and put in my name: the picture and my name, along with everyone else’s in the band, are on PIPL. We have a sobering and terrifying speed of communication with everyone who has internet access (and the interest). Note to self: be careful what you write!

It is common for men my age to start losing their hearing, especially the upper range. It is also common for men my age to deny that they have a problem. Part of my problem [these days] is that people have a tendency to slur their words. Some portions of words project more easily than others and many times people just don’t enunciate.

Enter the Android operating system. I’d seen it in action, and I especially was envious of the Goggle ap, where one can take a picture of a bar code, or a product, and it will tell you what it is, where to buy it, and what the prices are. I was also impressed with the voice recognition software.

I am now the somewhat proud owner of a Droid X, available through Verizon. Somewhat in that I miss the UI (user interface) of webOS from my Palm Pre, but I like the general zippyness and new aps that Android has.

After a few days of experimenting with the voice recognition software, I realized that clearly enunciated words get transcribed most readily. What does this mean or imply? That we will become a nation of enunciators so that our smart phones can effectively understand us, thereby not having to use a real or virtual keyboard.

Parents, REJOICE! Your tween or teens will have to join the revolution of good enunciators or be the SO-TWO-YEARS-AGO laggards of people who only use a keyboard.

The day of voice commands and transcription is here, and it WILL change society and our interactions with each other. Will it eventually smooth out the variety of English accents with it? Will everyone sound like the phone company operator?

Hmm, maybe I should go back and plug in my princess phone.

I’ve seen a lot of articles about the joy and limitations of a new generation of toys built on one’s brain waves contolling some parameter in the game.

For the last two months, I have been blogging psychically, having a running post, for you, as I go through my life. It’s almost turning into The Truman Show. I’m hoping this new brain control stuff starts working, just think of the possibilities! But for bloggers, it could be a very handy tool. Meditating could become a tax deduction, or a source of income–depending on what you do with it.

An inspiration to us all. Imagine trying to live someplace this small. I don’t think it would work for families, especially one with small kids who need a certain amount of space to expend their energy. But still, for single people who don’t have or want a lot of stuff, or a retired couple who wants to keep their expenses down, this seems like an excellent trend.

I had 1.4 seconds of fame recently. My hands were seen in a recent ad for a new tablet product that many of you have heard of by now. Apple’s new ad scheme strips all faces from its commercials, so you won’t see my face: only my hands!

Two iPads arrived yesterday and Daniel and I have been obsessed. (I’m making this post on it right now.) The online keyboard is better than than the iPhone; I’m getting used to it. I imagine myself using this more than a handheld phone/computer or laptop for that matter especially for casual reading and email.

Mail is lovely. Safari is too. Address book has a great feel to it. AIM incorporates many IM protocols — .me, Facebook, Twitter…

But my favorite is photos. Browsing all my old pics is a real joy.

If were making a decision between a Kindle and an iPad, and I was in the market for an ebook reader, I think the Kindle would be less straining on the eyes. The iPad has more bells and whistles and is a 1.0 model, and we knew that going into it.

As a replacement for a laptop, the lack of multiple-tasking is its weakest feature. I’m sure it will be incorporated before too long in a software upgrade.

All in all, I love it!

(We got the wifi version as we will use it mostly at home, and when out and about, we can use our Palm Pre as a wifi hotspot for free anywhere Verizon goes.)

I sent my phone off to get a minor repair done and am without my cell for three days. [Like Gilligan's Island: A three hour tour!] Holy moly. I didn’t realize how addicted to that device I have become.

Impulse: Hmm, I need to call Mitchell about Saturday. Ugh. No luck, have to find a land line. Is there a phone booth around here??

Impulse: “Hey Roger, what is Elaine’s phone number.” “It’s, uh, hold on, I’ll get it. Rats. It’s all in my cell phone.”

Impulse: Text Larry and ask whether he has heard any good news. oops, I can’t. I’ll call instead. Uh, no I won’t: I have no idea what his telephone number is.

Impulse: “When are you guys going to San Diego?” “It’s the week of the uh, let me look it up. Crap. My calendar is in my cell phone. I’ll have to get back to you.”

Impulse: What’s the room number I need to go to for my 2 o’clock meeting? I’ll have to call Alix, er, no I won’t.

Impulse: Standing in line at the post office. “Oh my god. I have nothing to escape to. I actually have to LOOK at all these people standing there.

Impulse: Roger, embrace your inner Buddha. Embrace the principle of non-attachment. Like James said yesterday: Breathe in::Hold::Slowly let it out.

Chill dude.

I was surfing channels on TV the other day. I stopped on the Animal Planet:

“…and left in their cages for years at a time, treated more like a plant than the beautiful parrot that they are, the bird slowly goes INSANE.”

This image has haunted me lately, not just because I have two parrots, each in their own cage who remind me regularly that they MUST come out and play or they’ll get cranky [or worse: INSANE].

I’m afraid I have friends who have become cagebound. Their only social outlet appears to be Facebook. Maybe that old scifi movie–where people had devolved into brains in amniotic fluid attached to supercomputers–will be our future. Who will need these old bodies anyway? No more brushing teeth, combing hair, taking baths, touching someone, seeing someone, loving someone, annoying someone. No need for sports, dating, church, school. Skip all that and just use Facebook.

And in the future, we can just use Facebook VII to communicate everything: when to go to bathroom, tell your friends every point you make in every game, your joys, your neuroses, your messages, your life.

Oh, pardon me, gotta go, someone just posted something on Facebook, I HAVE to read it.

Scott Spiegelberg used to make lists of the Top Classical Music Blogs, but when Invesp.com came along, he left it to them. If you care about such lists, bookmark it; the list is updated daily. They keep track of RSS membership feeds, unique monthly visitors, Yahoo and Google indexing, Google PR, and Alexa and Compete ranks. (If that is confusing, read here.) The number to the right of the blog name is invesp’s score.

Top 25 Classical Blogs (Invesp.com)
1st Sequenza21/ 100
2nd Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise 99.72
3rd parterre box presents La Cieca 99.29
4th NewMusicBox 97.83
5th Opera Chic 97.66
6th On An Overgrown Path 97.48
7th Jessica Duchens classical music blog 96.21
8th Jason Heaths Double Bass Blog 95.91
9th Dial “M” for Musicology 95.73
10th aworks :: “new” american classical music 95.69
11th Mind the Gap 95.63
12th slipped disc 95.62
13th Opera Today 95.57
14th Ionarts 95.41
15th The Collaborative Piano Blog 94.62
16th Daily Observations 94.6
17th rogerbourland.com 94
18th Classical WETA 90.9 93.82
19th Adaptistration 93.76
20th The Omniscient Mussel 93.76
21st CLASSICAL-ICONOCLAST 93.74
22nd Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Blog 93.62
23rd Createquity 93.61
24th oboeinsight 93.58
25th BIS New Releases 93.5

The next ranking comes from PostRank Analytics. The number to the right of the blog name is the number of “engagement points” they have given. According to their website: “Engagement refers to the attention other people pay to your published content, like blog posts, news & articles.”

Top 32 Classical Music Blogs (PostRank Analytics)
1 parterre box presents La Cieca 284,043
2 Iron Tongue of Midnight 7,835
3 ANABlog 5,792
4 Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog 4,980
5 PostClassic 4,926
6 ionarts 4,673
7 Sequenza21/ 3,875
8 Adaptistration 3,849
9 Jessica Duchen’s classical music blog3,706
10 The Omniscient Mussel on Classical Music &… 3,137
11 Kenneth Woods- a view from the podium 3,067
12 Soho the Dog 2,839
13 Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise 2,588
14 Dial “M” for Musicology 2,584
15 Musical Assumptions 2,466
16 Music Genre: Classical 2,299
17 The Rambler 1,313
18 CSO Bass Blog 940
19 classicalconvert.com 889
20 rogerbourland.com 855

Other lists

Top 10 Classical Music Blogs (Oak Web Works)
Sequenza21
The Standing Room
rogerbourland.com
The Omniscient Mussel
Thirteen Ways – Adventures (In New Music) With eighth blackbird
Parterre Box
Classical Convert
Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
Think Denk
Oboeinsight

Top 100 Top Musicology Blogs (DistanceLearning.com)

Alex Ross Blogging Composers
These statistics were provided through the links above and are quotes from Feb.8, 2010. These rankings change daily.

And finally a really smart list (sans moi) Wikio

Holy Moly!

I finally gave in and joined Linked In yesterday. A screen came up asking me whether I wanted to “link” with all the friends in my address book who already have Linked In accounts. I said ’sure, what the hell’ and it told me exactly how many that would be — and it was a large number. “Sure what the hell” I confirmed again.

Over the past two days I have received scads of emails from old friends and acquaintances, many from whom I have not heard for many years.

This very cool technology has afforded me little “hellos” from all my friends who agreed to be “linked” to me. And they heard from ME for the first time in a long time.

I know: that’s a terrifying thought to some; but little hellos are really OK.