Author: Billy Glenn

Brendan Maclean – Stupid

I had almost made it out the other side of my Aussie-ophile-lism, when Welcome to Night Vale had Brendan Maclean’s Stupid on The Weather. It’s a great song, that went great with the episode, and had a great video! His other videos are pretty good, but there’s just something about this one that I love. Maybe it’s juxtaposition between the “The Party Girl” and Brendan. Like: sometimes you can either choose to be miserable or choose to have a good time no matter what. Either way, I love this video.


Also: I like that The Party Girl looks a bit like the character from Hyperbole and A Half. I tried to tell Brosh this; I don’t think she was amused.

I used to talk to Brendan every now and then on Twitter. He seems like a pretty cool guy. Go check his other music out.

A Long December

A Long December takes it’s name from, of course, the Counting Crow’s song A Long December. I made it when I was at Stephen F. Austin. It’s disc 2 in the Best of Billy Collection, Volume 1.

  1. A Long December – Counting Crows
  2. Constitutional Peasants – from Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
  3. Good – Better than Ezra
  4. Phaser & Slot Machine – Superdrag
  5. Lips Like Sugar – Echo and the Bunnymen
  6. Backwater – Meat Puppets
  7. King Solomon’s Wines – Monty Python
  8. Creep – Radiohead
  9. Spanish Inquisition – Monty Python
  10. The Book Lovers – Broadcast
  11. Sour Girl – Stone Temple Pilots
  12. How do You – Radiohead
  13. Cynicality – Superdrag
  14. Never you mind – Semisonic
  15. The Spam Song – Monty Python
  16. Singing in my Sleep – Semisonic
  17. The Real Folk Blues – The Seatbelts

Listing to this now … wow … maybe I was a little sad? I don’t think I’ve burned a copy of this one in a really long time.

Houston Aloha!

The title for this CD was inspired by the doomed Apple online service eWorld. When they shut it down, the refuges that found themself back on AOL made a forum called “Apple Aloha!”

  1. All The Young Dudes – cover by World Party
  2. Billy, Don’t be a Hero – Paper Lace
  3. High and Dry – Radiohead
  4. Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead
  5. Excuse Me Mister – No Doubt
  6. Johnny Come Home – Fine Young Cannibals
  7. What Do You Want From Me? – Monico
  8. Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja – Lostprophets
  9. Road to Nowhere – Talking Heads
  10. The Lumberjack Song – Monty Python
  11. Monday – Wilco
  12. Santa Monica – Everclear
  13. Soak Up The Sun – Sheryl Crow
  14. Here – Luscious Jackson
  15. Millennium – Robbie Williams
  16. In The Meantime – Spacehog
  17. One Wish – Saturday Night Live / Steve Martin

This was the first mixed CD I made on my little Graphite iMac. Man … what was my deal with the Clueless Soundtrack? I think I created this right when I got back from Army Reserve Training and during my 2nd run at UHD. Part of Best of Billy Volume I.

Harvey Danger – Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Harvey Danger is a pretty cool band. One of my favorite songs is Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo. While some of their other music videos kinda leave you wanting, the one for Sad Sweetheart is pretty cool and kinda adds to the song.

When Tumblr first came onto the scene, I used the hashtags #sad #sweet and #heart not necessarily as part of a systematic taxonomy, but more as a way to express my feeling towards the post. Want to see everything that makes me #sad or that I thought was #sweet? Well, there you go! I did take work related stuff #rodeo, and when I rejoined Facebook (again) I kept using #rodeo for work stuff.

she takes another temp job
but in her secret heart she rides

Architecture in Helsinki

A while back I when through an “Aussie-ophile” period, listening to a lot of bands outta Australia. One of the bands that I picked up – and still really like to this day – was Architecture in Helsinki. Their songs are pretty good and the videos are always creative and usually add a lot to the song.

If you ever get a chance to see them play live, take it!

#OwnBooks

The Internet Archives is asking people to post the oldest books they own as part of their #OwnBooks campaign to show why it’s important that people are actually allowed to own the works they purchases, as opposed to just renting or leasing content.

This is not the oldest book that I own, but it is one that has been in my possession the longest.

Image of the book Our Universe
Cover of Our Universe

The National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe was an awesome tour of the solar system and universe told in pictures. This edition, the original published in 1980, is now woefully out-of-date. It’s survived floods, hurricanes, and – perhaps the most destructive force of all – children.

Image of page 42 & 43 of Our Universe
Page 42 & 43 of Our Universe
Image of page 46 & 47 from Our Universe
Page 46 & 47 from Our Universe
Image of page 58 & 59 from Our Universe
Page 58 & 59 from Our Universe
Image of page 192 & 193 from Our Universe
Page 92 & 93 of Our Universe

The original owner of this book was the Houston Independent School District. Specifically, the library at Barrick Elementary. I’m not sure how many times I checked out this book – it was a lot. My favorite part was – and still is – the “What if …” there’s life on other planets, what might it look like. Deep down, I knew life on these other planets might not look like this, but when you’re a kid it’s fun to dream and imagine.

Image of a book spine repaired with packing tape
My dad repaired the binding with packing tape. Not the best conservation-wise, but it’s held for 30-something years.

I’m not sure how this book ever survived my childhood. At one point, my dad used box tape to fix the broken spine. Not the best practice, from an archival standpoint, but it’s held surprisingly well all these years.

I pretty much wore out this book to the point where it needed to be discarded and replaced. Our librarian, Ms. Bowman, decided to just give me the book. Thank you Ms. Bowman, wherever you are.

Brasero Can’t Burn CDs/DVDs

I still like burning CD. What can I say, I’m an olds 😐

The last few times that I’ve had to install Debian from scratch, and now with Fedora as well, it seems it’s a bit of a rigmarole to get Rhythmbox and Brasero to burn disc. It usually takes about an hour, but eventually I’ll run into this bug report with the following workaround:

sudo chmod +s $(which wodim)

This sets the setuid bit for /urs/bin/wodim.

Thanks Sergey Zolotarev for the workaround. Maybe one day your bug will get fixed.