Sketches of 2007

Goodbye

Cigarettes. I will cherish our time together by personally saying goodbye to each and every one of you on this New Years Eve.

I'll humor the Gregorian calendar with resolutions if it's a means to an end...
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On an unrelated note, I thought I'd try a panoramic on the bus ride home from MN, to see how well I could get the landscape to line up as it was passing by; surprisingly well...

Bill's Exit

I made this one night in a couple of days (if not the same night) of my Grandfather's passing near xmas some years ago. The segment below is just a free-writing thing I do every once in awhile. I thought it complemented the song well and I wanted to honor him since it's that time of year.
Celebrate one's Life! Not mourn their Death!

Bill trampled through the door. He could see a mound of dirty laundry in front of it;
like a blockade. Why and how it was still there didn't make sense,
but he needed his box and he knew the keep-safe would be protected from the fire.
It looked like it started from the radio; that old radio in the living room. He remembered sitting in front of it; a young boy with his older brother, younger sister, mother and father; all of them more in amazement from the new technology than what was playing, it seemed. Two houses later; two lifetimes later... but on he went upstairs weaving through the patches of black crust and the Untouched; brown carpet and pieces of furniture; the yellow walls from smoking cigarettes over time; and in the living room; soot-made shadows in his peripheral vision that seemed to say "we've taken over now, this is our home." It all looked more like a plague of mold had consumed neglected space over time. Barely any of this mattered though. The radio had its time, but his keep-safe... and then he realized the framed photographs on the way up; 3 generations. They were faded of course, but the pictures were fine... and they did matter; he was welling.

Jay Smooth Breaks It Down

There's a post off of Lifehacker I found where Jay Smooth talks about an issue he calls "The Little Hater". He does a great job of articulating underlying principles and themes in common issues through recent events and in such a short amount of time.


The rest of his videos can be seen at his ill doctrine and youtube and they are equally as dope.

Fluffy, no?

I haven't listened to my old cd mixes in awhile, so I thought I'd put it out there.
Compilations are great; beatblending makes 'em better. There's usually more than one track with the same artist because the main intention was to listen to what I was finding at the time (and gambling on not having heard some songs enough so they would be fresh to my ears) along with some classics.

Artists on the mix include:

Mo' Snappy (mixing Giant Robot)
Dadamnphreaknoizphunk
Bass Drums Attack (mixing another Giant Robot)
Moloko
Moodorama
UNKLE
Urchin
Sneaker Pimps
RJD2
Basement Jaxx
Alphawezen
Monster Magnet
Bjork vs Amon Tobin mash

Wiimote Scratching

I came across this site looking for info on Nitrada (after hearing the Telefon Tel Aviv Remix of Fading Away) called Electronic Music Interface, "a (mostly uncommented) collection of selected ideas, environments and examples for musical interaction." There's are a few interesting videos to watch, including one where a guy uses the magnetic strip on his drivers license as a midi controller. You can also find out how to use a Wiimote (bluetooth) for controlling midi and programs. Apart from the novelty value it'd be interesting to see artists use these in different ways while still keeping the music from being a random twitch-fest.... Scroll to 3:04 to see immediate action with some ol skool phatness.

Cool Stuff

I came across this site called GadgetDNA. At first I just wanted to showcase a few of the things they have but there's too much cool stuff; page after page; check it! First ones that caught my eye were:
Ring Microphone
Cord Lamp
Zeus Letter Opener
Super Mario Energy Drink
Newspaper Logs (genius) and the 2 after that is a transparent toaster and Barefoot Shoes!


Finger Nose Hair Trimmer

I Feel Ya

The Dawn of the Dickies

When I heard this on vinyl the other night I was transported to high school in the early eighties (the vinyl and alcohol helped), except I wasn't in high school in the eighties. I still remember the 80's though; the high-tops, tight-rolled whitewash jeans, hairspray and gel, John Hughes, lotsa make-up, Ronald Reagan, Kurt Loder, cocaine...and I saw myself talking to a friend while popping gum at their locker asking if his older sister Molly is going to drive us to the show on Friday...

Yes there is an obvious Ramones influence and I am partial to a few certain songs but it's overall pretty rocking and still worth mentioning. Also it doesn't have the same impact as hearing it on vinyl...

("Fan Mail" & "Manny, Moe and Jack" rock especially)

Pet Suits

People who use their dogs as accessories and then in turn dress them up should wear dog suits themselves when they're walking or carrying them around.
It's only fair, right?

What's a one word verb for blog surfing?

What if someone were twittering and they wanted to say they were blog-surfing, but that should be passe by now. I googled the question, but to no avail.
So I'm currently dubbing the one word verb to "slurfing".
"blurging" or "blurfing" doesn't cut it, or "slurging"
So I'm sticking with slurfing for now.
I'm slurfing right now. It's my morning routine; like reading the morning paper, except I read feeds off of Snarfer. It's free!
Well there it goes, I guess I answered my question.
I could say I'm "snarfing"
You know, snarfing sounds like some cheap technique kids use to get high, or eating cereal too much too fast, I dunno...
hm.