I was listening to an 80’s radio station today, and heard Feargal Sharkey’s “A Good Heart” (a classic song from the 80’s).

That was when I noticed that every single line from that song was a cliche:

• Risk of getting hurt
• I still have so much to learn
• Real love is hard to find
• My expectations may be high
• I blamed it on my youth
• I learned the painful truth
• Please be gentle with this heart of mine
• I learned a little every day

Which made me wonder, whether this song was so good that every line of it entered popular culture and became cliches we now use? Or did the guy just rip off every cliche in the book, to create this this song? Judge for yourself…

My mother passed away on March 28th, 2008. I dedicate Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Alone Again (Naturally) for all the words that were left unspoken…

I bought an iPod system for my wife at Christmas: the iPod, 200 iTunes credits & an FM Transmitter for her car.

The problem was that in the 2+ months since Christmas, she got so frustrated at the FM Transmitter (not working properly) that she’s stopped using it!

Looking into the problem, it appears that static (or more powerful radio stations) were drowning out the iPod music. This didn’t seem right because this was the latest Belkin, with their fancy technology to find clear frequencies to minimize/eliminate interference! When I Google’d this problem, most people seemed to say that it couldn’t be helped, especially for newer cars where the radio antenna is “built” into the rear windscreen.

Playing around with it myself, I discovered that I could push buttons on the Belkin to find a clear frequency, but when I changed the FM dial on the radio to that frequency, it often had static or worse yet a radio station! How could this be? Was my Belkin broken and not able to correctly identify a clear frequency?

Interestingly enough, as I reached to the Belkin again, to attempt to find another frequency, I could hear the Ipod clearly. As long as I held my hand on or very near the unit, the iPod music was coming over the car’s speakers loud and clear! This got me thinking that, because I was touching the Belkin, I was acting as the antenna for it to determine a “clear frequency”.  But if my hand wasn’t near the unit, the car’s antenna over-powering whatever internal antenna the unit had.

So in short, I pressed the button for the Belkin to search for the clear frequency. And then quickly moved my hand away from the unit (allowing it to search without using me as the antenna). Once it locked onto a good frequency, I set the radio to the same, and the iPod music came through clearly. I drove over 20 miles (around town) and was able to perfectly hear the iPod music without having the change frequencies once!

It’s such a simple solution (to an otherwise frustrating situation). I’m really surprised that Belkin didn’t put it on their instructions. And I’m even more surprised that this information wasn’t more obviously published on the Internet!

How to compress everything your mom said in 24 hours, into 2 minutes 55 seconds… sung to William Tell Overture.

This is a pretty cool music video. Lots of profanity, so turn the volume down if you’re at work