afongen

Based on Scott’s recommendation I bought Peter Gabriel’s new album, and he’s right: it’s great. I hardly ever listen to music anymore, something I’ve been thinking I should change, so this is a treat.

I knew I’d made the right decision when the very next day I saw the cover for Doris Lessing’s Sweetest Dream.

The hard part for me when I buy new music is that I am not a lyrics man. Hell, I’m hardly a music man. I can watch a movie and not even notice that there’s music — except when it’s conspicuously absent, as in the masterful final duel scene in Rob Roy. My musician friends, on the other hand (my friends always turn out to be musicians, it’s kind of eerie), walk out of a movie talking about nothing but the music. And there’s little ol’ me, wondering, “there was music?”

Even when I am deliberately listening to music, though, I am oblivious to lyrics. I can listen to a song over and over again, having no idea what the words are. So please don’t ask me for a favorite track on Up, because I just don’t know.

Damn fine album, though. Yessir.

The next version of Microsoft Word will include support for XML. What’s explained in this article sounds interesting but it’s too soon to be clear what it really means. It does not seem that XML will be the native file format, as is true with OpenOffice/StarOffice, which is a damn shame. That’s one of the many reasons I’m fond of OpenOffice, because it means that I can use those docs in all sorts of different ways.

Still, if Word content is in any way exportable or accessible using XML, this is a Good Thing. I’m sure that Microsoft will find a way to keep everything in the family, making it really easy to use with other Microsoft products but a pain in the ass to use anything else. We shall see.