Listen more than once Oct 12, 2006
I own several albums that needed to be listened to more than once in order to fully appreciate them.  I find this happening more and more with CDs I've bought recently (yes, I still buy CDs).  Every now and then, I'll listen to a CD and instantly like it the first time through.  This was the case with Phish's Undermind.  For some reason, that whole album appealed to me in some way or another (except "Secret Smile", which is a horrific train wreck of a song), and I ended up listening to the album a good 10 times from beginning to end while driving in my car. 

But other albums affect me after the 2nd or 3rd listen.  This is the case with Jet's new one, Shine On.  The first listen was ok, but I was still a little iffy.  These guys blew me away with their last one, but half the songs on Get Born were slow and girly.  So I was expecting another album half-filled with hard-hitting rock songs and half-filled with slow ones.  Shine On has some of the same mix, but I think the songs are more effectively organized on the disc.  It's not up, down, up, down.  It's up, up, up, up, up, down, up, up, down, etc.  Whatever it is, I'm on the 4th or 5th listen and I'm loving it. 

The 2nd listen requirement is the case with most AC/DC and Black Crowes music.  This is not the case with most Blues Traveler, ulu, and Trey music.  I'm not quite sure what this says about these artists.  If it only needs to be listened to once to be fully enjoyed, does that mean it's genuinely good music?  If it needs to be listened to more than once, does that mean it's more complex and requires a certain appreciation of something that's going on in that specific band's music?  I don't know what the deal is, but I think it might have something to do with my mood, my surroundings, background noise, and how loud it is.  If Wendy's in the car with me, I can't fully appreciate a new CD because I can't play it as loud as I'd like (plus, Wendy likes to talk sometimes).  If I'm sitting in traffic and I'm late to something, I can't appreciate a new CD because I'm preoccupied and can't concentrate on the music.  So I think it depends more on the situation than on the type of music. #entertainment
Broken links Oct 12, 2006
As a "web designer/publisher" (sorta), I get really mad when other web designers/publishers produce shoddy work.  One big example of this is with links.  Arguably the most important part of the internet is its ability to link different objects and ideas together.  That, along with the whole "information" part, make up the "information superhighway" (wow that's an outdated term).  So messing up links is a pretty big deal.  Here are the three biggest mistakes I see on a regular basis: 

1.  Omitting the "http://" (a.k.a. "scheme").  For example: 

<a href="http://ddhr.orgwww.google.com">www.google.com</a>

What happens if my link doesn't include the scheme?  It doesn't friggin work. 

2.  Including an extra "http://".  This is most likely the result of using an automatic link generator.  For example: 

<a href="http://http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>

What happens if my link has an extra scheme?  If doesn't friggin work. 

3.  Extra spaces.  This is most likely the result of double-clicking on a word or series of words and then using an automatic link generator.  Double-clicking (at least in Windows) always selects the space after the word.  Double-clicking on the "Dave" in "Dave is a jerk" will select "Dave ".  So a link will look like

the <a href="http://www.google.com/">link is </a>here
or
the<a href="http://www.google.com/"> link is</a> here

This guy does this constantly.  What happens if the markup has extra spaces?  Nothing at all.  But it looks terrible, especially when links are underlined. #technology