A Place for My Stuff

10th Anniversary of the fire at "The Station", Warwick RI

I just read an article reminding me that it's now been 10 years since the fire at The Station, the deadliest nightclub fire in US history. I can't believe it's been a decade.

I used to go to this club a lot. If, like me, you were a fan of 80s metal and living in New England, a lot of bands you'd know would come to this club in Rhode Island. Sometimes that's as far north was they'd go on a tour. I have a lot of great memories seeing those bands as well as my friends' bands there. Fortunately, I wasn't there that night Great White was playing, even though I had the club's calendar printed out and taped on my office wall.

I remember getting a call at 8 in the morning from my father, who heard the news and, knowing that I'm a shameless fan of 80s glam metal, suspected there was a chance I was at that club. Naturally, he was relieved to hear I was alive. After getting off the phone and hearing more details of the tragedy in a half-awake state, it suddenly hit me: were any of my friends in that fire? I furiously called a few friends. Fortunately, they had already had a head start calling each other, so I only had to make about 2 phone calls myself to get filled in on the details. Was Paul there? No. Was Dan there? No. Was Johnny there? Yes, but he was alive and was helping to pull out some bodies. Julie the bartender? Yes, but she escaped in time and is going to be interviewed on "Good Morning America" tomorrow. And so on. Over all, none of my close friends were among the body count of 100.

In a way, I'm not too surprised that the fire happened. The vertical space between the stage floor and the ceiling was ridiculously low, maybe 7 feet. The fire exit door on the right of it was usually completely covered over in sound foam. The other exits were awkward to get to. And to think, I was there to see W.A.S.P. less than a year before, and we were all upset that they were not allowed to use pyrotechnics that night.

Hey, it's February 14th!

Yep, I'm posting another one of these.  The truth is, I have a several that I made, and I'd like to make even more.  In fact, since I've been so frustrated at seeing bogus, unsourced Carlin quotes around the 'net, I'd like to set up my own website for this kind of stuff.  Maybe I'll split "A Place For My Stuff" into two pages, one blog and one Carlin fan/quotation page?  We'll see.

 

Pope News

Actually I don't care about the Pope one way or another.  But since he's in the news, I figured I'd use this as another excuse to post a Carlin quote.

"Death Is Almost Fun These Days" (George Carlin)

Last week I went to a funeral.  I was reminded of this quote.

Mailing lists, mailing lists, mailing lists

I find myself rarely checking my personal email account these days.  I guess that's because I simply use email for less things than I used to.  I'm sure it's the same way with many people.  Now a days it's easy enough and more common to send text messages (including to yourself), program events into a cellphone, use social networking sites, do more discussions on message boards rather than mailing lists, etc.  Even when it comes to my podcast, the feedback and questions I get from listeners more often comes through on Facebook or some message board.

That's not to say that email is obsolete.  Far from it.  However, I've noticed that by far and large, the new emails I do get are either spam or from mailing lists. I've talked before about deleting existing emails that amount to "digital hoarding clutter".  This blog entry is more about stopping the inflow.  

The spam is thankfully pretty well under control these days.  A lot of web-based mail services like Gmail or Yahoo mail tend to do a good job lately at keeping spam separated.  It's not flawless, but it seems to work much better than it did in internet days of old.  Then again, I also use a special forwarding address in cases when I suspect it's going to be used for spam (e.g., contests, department stores, or services that I seldom use).  A lot of spam these days incorporates misspelled words and special characters to avoid being picked up by spam filters, but ironically this makes the spam more easily recognizable!

So it's time to weed out some of the mailing lists I'm on.  Here's what I see in my inbox.

• Freecycle newsletter.  I've mentioned Freecycle before. In summary, they can be a double-edged sword for hoarders: good for giving things away, but rather dangerous if you don't have the self-control to not take the other free stuff people are giving away.  While I have used Freecycle before, the bottom line is that I haven't used it in quite some time.  There's really no need to keep getting emails about it every day, so I'll unsubscribe to this list for the time being.
• Music gadget mailing list.  A couple of years back I bought a Yamaha rack for one of my all-too-many "back burner" projects (in this case, a musical one).  I played with it for a while.  Then I had to take my set-up down since the room was being swallowed up by something else.  I kept on the mailing list, because in the back of my mind, I kept thinking "Well seeing these newsletters will be a good reminder to get around to using it."  Well, that didn't happen.  Will it someday?  I'm sure.  But there's no need to keep subscribed to a mailing list I'm not reading.
• Musician's Friend.  This is a really great website for browsing and buying musical instruments and related accessories.  Great deals, fast shipping.  I recommend them, and I know I'll purchase from them again in the future.  However, I don't need to see a bunch of things every week I could blow my money on and not use.  So here's another unsubscribe for me.
• Concert venues, band sites, ticket vendors.  I've lost track of just how many of these I get.  Here's how it happens: I buy tickets to see a band or comedian at a particular venue, and from that point onward, I get updates about who's coming to town.  Ditto for a few band's official fan sites.  There are some places I do visit frequently and I do want the updates.  On the other hand, there are venues I barely go to more than once in a 2-year period.  I can drop these.
• Golf Equipment Site.  A few years back, I bought a gift for my father through this website.  Since then, they've been sending me the emails.  In the back of my mind, I think "Well my father is frustratingly difficult to shop for, so I might buy from them again, especially if I do one of these discounts they're talking about."  Well, that hasn't happened.  Unsubscribe -- FORE!
• Amazon Local Deals.  Do you get these?  I've used some.  Though I may very well drop this.  I don't need coupons every day.
• Restaurants.  Same as the concert venues: some I go to, some I never go to anymore.  Keep subscribed to the former, unsubscribe from the latter.

Oh, and one final word of warning: sometimes when you think you're unsubscribing from a list, you're unknowingly signing yourself up for future lists.  This usually happens if you find yourself on a mailing list that you DID NOT sign up for in the first place.  When this happens, just delete the email.  Otherwise, if it's something that you've knowingly subscribed to or did an on-line purchase from, it's not exactly "spam", so unsubscribing is typically safe.  As always, when in doubt, use a throw-away email address for subscriptions!