Anand Greenwell

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I know you have all been wasting a lot of mental energy pondering this hugely important question…and likely to no avail.

Well, wonder no more! Finally, someone has done it! I have slowed the birds down 400% (that’s 2 octaves…someone had to do it!), and to be honest they sound a little odd.

(For reference, here is the original audio. It was used in my song in the previous post).

The other day I went outside to throw something in the garbage and I noticed that the big tree in the back alley was full of birds. The birds sounded really cool so I grabbed my Ipod and a stereo mic and recorded them for a couple minutes. Then I put it into Live and recorded a few guitar parts, some bass and saxophone. Tonight I was doing a bit of editing and clean-up on the track, so I figured I’d leave the drums turned off so it wouldn’t drive the people upstairs bonkers (with all the stopping and starting, editing can be really annoying to listen to). I thought it sounded pretty good sans drums, so I did a mix without them. Check it out here.

The other day, Davin wrote a very interesting post called Counter Confidence, where he addressed issues of corporate citizenship with a simple question: what do you feel when you see a logo, and why?

In that spirit, here’s a little test:

How did that make you feel? Did it make you laugh? Did you gag?

My reaction was interesting: “Those ridiculous twerps are displaying their logo in public??!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!” Safe to say, it’s the first time I’ve ever felt embarrassed for a blimp. “Awww, poor blimp. Sorry to hear about your crappy paint job.”

You may have heard the recent story about how the CRTC has ordered Canada’s stubborn wireless providers to upgrade their 911 systems to catch up to the level other countries have been at since 2005. This has been debated and resisted for years. Typical stuff from our oligopolistic telecoms, but that isn’t why I have such a negative reaction when I see that logo.

My reaction is informed partly years of wonderful personal experiences dealing with that company and others like it, and most recently, by a story I saw today that you would have to see to believe. One of Bell’s business customers, a law firm in Ontario named Martin & HIllyer, got a $207,000 bill for long distance calls to Sierra Leone. This customer says they never made these calls. Rather, what really happened is someone figured out the password to their Bell voicemail and used it to “return” calls, thereby running up the massive bill.

Bell believes someone used an auto dialer to run through all the possible password combinations until they found the right one.

They publicly admit this.

What I can’t believe–and what Martin & Hillyer are no doubt having a hard time digesting–is that apparently, there is no security feature in the voicemail system that sets a maximium number of consecutive failed login attempts.

Can you believe that? I can’t. Wait, I already said that.

This is a simple security measure that would be effective against automated “brute force” attacks such as this. You’ve probably experienced it yourself.  Three unsuccessful login attempts in a row? Sorry, now you have to get a new password. With Bell, that would mean you set aside half a day, call Customer “Service” where, after listening to hours of bad music and prerecorded messages reminding you how important your call is, you will be asked to answer some confidentiality questions, at which point they can set you up with a new password and send you on your way. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Disbelief is creeping up again….really…are you guys sure your system doesn’t already have this feature?? You think your system was hacked by an auto dialer???? C’mon…you can’t be serious!

There are two other simple solutions: lose the feature that lets you make outgoing calls from voicemail, and perhaps more realistically: get rid of your Bell Voicemail.

There are other elements to this story that are incredible, but not surprising given the source: It will probably not shock any of you that Bell has blamed the customer. It should also come as no surprise that Bell has technology in place that can detect unusual calling patterns and block the services accordingly. They have said so themselves, but for whatever reason, that technology did not seem to do much good here. Finally, Bell has offered to reduce, but not eliminate, the resulting bills as a “goodwill gesture.” Did anyone expect a better solution from them? Not me.

Truth be told, these “lapses” in security sound like a good little moneymaker for Bell.

Ok, enough serious stuff for now. Here’s a hilarious video clip from Steve Nash. He is faster than sharks.

Well, internet is back. I haven’t updated this site since the summer. Guess what? Going outside to play is still better than being on the internet. So is playing music. Tonight, instead of going outside, I picked up the guitar and played a little ambient ditty: jan-25. I like the guitar effect. Being too dumb to avoid the internet, I was of course back on it in minutes and next thing you know, I had moderated 138 spam comments on this site, whooo!

But that’s not all! A bunch of other stuff happened that, depending on who you are, may not be any of your business, and an assortment of events occurred throughout the world which I don’t really care to comment on, since I am not at this time in possession of any first-hand information that needs to be disseminated. There, an honest post. Isn’t blogging fun?

This is a new track that I just finished making on Sunday. Tempo is 123 and percussion wise, I’d say it’s house, but there are arpeggiated parts that are quite trancey. No doubt someone has come up with a name to describe this particular style. Anyhow, check it out…enjoy!
Anand

Fender Bender

This is a track that I made in two stages (to hear it, click on the link above the picture). It started out as an ’80s style pop-R&B sort of piece. I played sax, guitar and a 1965 Fender Jazz Bass on it. I liked how some parts sounded but not others, so I sampled the parts that I liked and used them to make the version that I posted here, which is more of a house track. Hope you like it!

This is not a new story from Dr Seuss. This is not a story about some juice. This is my story about what happened when i went to Subway on Friday morning.

Time to order. Yay!

I tell the girl, “6 inch ham egg and cheese on brown please.”

She gets all confused.

I say a bit more slowly:  

“brown bread, 6 inch. Breakfast sub. Ham…eggs…and cheese.” 

She gets the bread, cuts it and reaches for the tuna.

I say “no tuna! Breakfast sub. Eggs! No tuna!”

She puts the tuna down and asks, “eggs?”

I nod and say “eggs, yes please. Eggs ham and cheese.”

“Toasted?”

I say “yes, toasted please.”

She fumbles with the eggs.

They are frozen and stuck together. More fumbling ensues. I look away, peering out into the food court to keep from getting annoyed.

She puts something in the microwave.

I feel it is safe to look back now.

She has lettuce on the sub and is reaching for the green peppers. I did not ask for lettuce yet.

Also, the sub is not toasted.

I think about asking her to toast it, but I am no longer sure if I would be able to convey this information to her.  “No green peppers please. Lettuce, onions, tomatoes and banana peppers.” Astonishingly, she negotiates this task without any difficulty.

The microwave starts beeping. The eggs are ready!

She takes the eggs out. They are not eggs. Some kind of greasy square thing…definitely not eggs.

“Those are not eggs,” I advise her.

“Huh?”

“That square thing you have there. Not eggs.”

I point to the eggs: “those. Those are eggs.”

She manages to separate a portion of frozen, precooked eggs. In the nuker it goes. Time to choose my sauces now.

“Chipotle please.”  She reaches for the mayonnaise.

I say “no mayo.” She puts the mayo back.  I point at the chipotle. “This. This chipotle.” She picks up the mayo AGAIN, bangs it on the counter and tries to blast out a chunk. A small gob of mayo lands on one end of the sub.

The microwave starts beeping. The eggs are ready!

She takes the eggs out. This time, they are eggs! Yay!

“No mayo,” I say again. This time she hears me, and grabs the chipotle, squeezing a pool of it all over the eggs.

Now it is time to pay. Someone else is working the till. Thank god!

The End.

Is the picture there?

I am all grown up now. I can use websites other than Facebook…yeehaw!

Me