14 posts tagged “music”

did i mention i got my ipod? hooray! my first digital music player! ive only desperately needed one for... 4 years now? i have a fairly large collection of music, so it became irrational to burn cds for my car. also, unwieldy. actually, lets go into details of my portable music exploits. every since ive had a car, ive had a cd player. my brother bought one for the first car i drove, and when i destroyed that, my new car had a factory installed player. this was quite up to date as far as 2003, but was fading fast. while cds were still selling like hotcakes, digital music was taking over and i had a lot of music on my computer that would not be reasonable to put on cds. also, when i got my college laptop, i was burning about 1 cd per day. they would often be burnt up by the sun while lying in my car because i had no room in my cd case. so i stopped burning cds, and made them only when an album was critical, or when i was super tired of all my other cds. ive basically been listening to the same stuff since the beginning of college. slowly changing over a few years. maybe thats why when i look in my cases now, im unenthusiastic about all of my music. also, i took lots of long drives, and im a little worn out on the stuff. ive been making mixed cds for the past year to generate some more spontaneity in my listening habits, but it has finally run dry. i feel like ive been overplaying singles that i immediately liked. so i finally broke down and bought the ipod. and i feel like its already providing refreshment.

hmm. it wont let me upload my pictures today. i dont know what the deal is.

ive decided to become an active blogger again. i kept putting off blogging because i didnt have pictures, but now i just dont care. so you get lots more text posts. part of the inspiration for this new enthusiasm for blogging is rilo kiley. i just saw them tonight at the norva, and the show basically jump started all of my creative thoughts. there was so much energy at the show it was amazing. i thought it was going to be a much smaller crowd, especially since tickets were pretty expensive ($30). but there were a ton of people there, from little bitty high school kiddies to old couples. if you havent seen them live, go. its quite a fun experience; but then again im a huge fan (see my last.fm). lets see if i can remember the set list: (edit: definitely not all in the order they played... pretty sure about encore though)

close call
moneymaker
capturing moods
dreamworld
breaking up
a man/ me/ then jim
its a hit
portions for foxes
absence of god
with arms outstretched
i never
a better son / daughter
does he love you?

encore:

15
ripchord ->
spectacular views ->
hail to whatever you found in the sunlight that surrounds you+

they started off with blacklight stuff, fell back for capturing moods (which was announced by blake as it seemed jenny forgot what was up) and then went back and forth among the blacklight and more adventurous. there was a lot of dancing and singing coming from the crowd, everyone on stage seemed to enjoying themselves as well. blake really rocked out on his solos, lots of enthusiasm, a little bit of improvisation, but mostly just changed up the rhythm or double strummed. regardless, it was really fun to watch and different in approach to certain songs. it was also great to hear how jenny took the old stuff; kept the little nuances in her voice, but also made stronger inflections and sang out.

PS. they had an awesome shirt with a piano crushing some guys head. also, theyre back to printing possum shirts and hoodies, shirts in gold (on their website) and black on grey hoodies (at shows)

i love my wii. im borrowing a bunch of games from joe which are really cool, warioware, big brain academy, and mario party. i picked up house of the dead 2&3 which i have always loved, and it remains a good port. also, it hurts my wrist from keeping my hand tilted for hours on end. i didnt pick up the wii zapper because it looks bulky and dumb.

graphic design is going well i suppose. the visual arts center chose my design and layout for the student art magazine they put out each year. i also entered an identity system in the student art show and won a prize. so maybe i have a chance to pick up that internship in new york?

now that swimming has calmed down, i feel less inclined to swim myself. instead ive started running and picked up a free weights routine. its all new for me, which is exciting. i kind of like running. i think its a good alternative to swimming because everyone runs, and no one except mark can keep up with me in swimming. so socially its better, which makes it much easier to call people up and work out. but unfortunately that also means that im not going to ever get back up to speed in the water. hmm.

the spoon show with the walkmen and white rabbits was pretty awesome. it was really well organized and the walkmen had a good set. spoon played for near two hours, it was... really long. as much as i enjoy spoon, that was a lot of time standing on my feet. you know what i wish they played though?

so last week i walked into a target to pick up some random things and saw a wii just sitting around, so i bought it. its pretty awesome. i picked up smash bros with it, and im loving that. i just wish my friends were more nerdy so they would join in my electronic excitement. they werent even interested in the fact that i have all the playable characters.

so if you havent heard about muxtape, go ahead and check mine out! its a really neat, simplistic site that takes mixtape sharing to a bigger level. make your own and leave me the address!

during march, i spent most of my time away from my house. the first two weekends, i was out of town doing swim stuff. senior champs at uva, and age group champs at gmu (manassas). that was pretty good, except for the whole respiratory distress thing going on –spending four days on a pool deck really kills your lungs. it makes you all snotty and congested and generally a mess. they just dont account for prolonged exposure when they do ventilation. fortunately it was super nice outside during age groups so they kept the doors open which was a huge help. anyways, during senior champs, i managed to do ok. 23.00 in the 50 free, 51.00 in the 100 free. nice, even times. not as fast as i should be, or could be, but you know; its alright for the amount of practice i do. id like to say that im happy with those times, but im really not.
as far as accommodations went, the motel we had in charlottesville was pretty crappy; but the hotel in manassas was really nice. like, totally makes up for charlottesville and having to work that weekend nice. and when i got back home, i went to house-sit for jay who went to junior nationals in florida. i crashed at his place for two weeks basically. it was long enough for me to take my computer over there. but im pretty partial to my computer.

now im back in my house, and its kind of ... annoying. not that i actually spend lots of time here, but still. i guess ill just have to pass the time playing wii :)

it has been 9 days since my order has been shipped. i give them until monday, and then i plan on writing a very nasty complaint about timeliness and beg for them to maybe send another tshirt because it is very awesome and i must have it. please? what is wrong with the mail this month? ive recieved an onslaught of random catalogs from companies ive never order through, but not the two packages i want; one being the shirt, the other a business card case.

i have given in to my deepest, gluttonous desires. since missing gillies breakfast last weekend due to lunch plans, i have craved a spanish fritatta like a pregnant woman desires [strange food combination ex: peas & turkey gravy]. so in lieu of my usual, i created a similar yet different version of my favorite breakfast utilizing what was left in my fridge.

my less_spanish fritatta contained:
3 egg crepe
roasted red peppers
previously baked, quartered red potatoes stir fried with salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, oregano, dill
onion
spinach (raw)
capers
mozzarella cheese
raspberry walnut vinaigrette salad dressing

it hit the spot. optional salsa. it wasnt quite the same, i really need the artichokes and feta, but everything else seemed accounted for. i think the real key to recreating a similar fritatta is the potatoes and vinaigrette. the crunchiness of the potato and the sour from the balsamic vinegar is a crucial representation.

i have also been really into fast food and greasy food. in the past two weeks ive eaten out several times and have always ordered something deep fried. from chickfila to gordon biersch fish and chips, from boston beanery fried haddock sandwich to roger moore's catfish po' boy. but still not satisfied, there resides in me a deep desire to try a sausage mcgriddle. i dont even know why. actually, that last part is a lie, ive been talking about trying one for like 2 months now; ever since i found out its a sausage patty held between two flavored pancakes. its a good thing i started swimming again.

one more craven thing: i fell into the peer pressure hole and went out (for a short period) last night to bar norfolk. ann was working and matt said he was going, so i felt i should hold up my end of the bargain and be social. turned out to be a fun night. ann hooked me up and things were just becoming interesting when i had to leave because of work the next morning. so maybe the real cowardly thing was going in early. i suppose theres always next week. i had never been into bar, but it was pretty much as i expected. strange regulars, tons of squid, hot girls. odd choice of music though. the dj was pretty content with playing current pop/rock hits with the occassional country song. lots of panic at the disco and fallout boy followed by some hiphop and some justin timberlake. not very impressive transitioning either. maybe im just spoiled though.

ive been spending a lot of time online during studio time, and rather than working on my projects, ive discovered some really great things (mostly through blogs). i thought id collect them all here and share them with you, so you also have a less productive day.

MUSIC: lately, ive been bringing headphones into the studio to listen to creative music rather than The Worlds Most Inane and Annoying Conversations. and while ive loaded some stuff into itunes, its a lab computer and im not super interested in filling up the hard drive resulting in latent work speeds; so i also use www.blogmusik.net (which is down) so then i found this live concert page in npr. its pretty amazing, you can even download some concerts whole.

MOVIES: so since its a mac lab, when you start up safari it automatically homepages to apple.com. so ive been pretty up to date with movie trailers. notable ones to see are ratatouille, close to home, the somewhat compelling balls of fury, the only interesting because of what i know about child psych wild tigers i have known, uh the nanny diaries, the estranged love almost like "in good company" in the land of women, julia roberts' daughter in nancy drew,  and coming to more theaters? the painted veil.

Mixed Media: have your cremation ashes turned into pencils! thats cool. expect to receive one soon after my death.
a short documentary on the dying art of lithographic typography. rea(e)l art in advertising over at vitamin. fun, vulgar typography of pulp fiction. and strange ad campaign for bright eyes new album cassadaga.

also, ive come to notice that lots of tshirt ideas are being copied and stolen, most to be imported to threadless as original designs which i think is highly inappropriate and just bad form. one more reason to dislike threadless. theres a difference between derivative work and creating a vector copy.

basketball. although i dont know anything about basketball, i have been following the ncaa tournament like mad simply because i put in a facebook bracket. i guess im just super competitive; even if its based on random guessing. all the virginia teams are out. well, except georgetown, which im not really sure is virginia, i think theyre dc and that doesnt really count. in any case, it would have been cool to see vcu go a little further, as well as tech, but oh well. regardless of how far i put the va teams, my bracket is still holding its own in my pools. im actually not doing too bad which is highly surprising since i have absolutely no knowledge of basketball.

swimming. we're almost out of short course season! all thats left is junior nationals (which is in florida and is only for one of our swimmers, so im not going) and zones (which is in buffalo and includes three of our swimmers, im also not attending that). so all i have to do is hold down the fort here with practice and then in a few more weeks we're into long course and it all starts over again. its like a never ending job that doesnt even slow down. with new kids coming in every week, it doesnt seem to have any sort of convenient stopping point, you start to know them and then youre hooked. you start caring about their goals and their grades and their lives and theres just nothing you can do but keep going back to practice.

music. i have been sort of stuck in a rut with music, pushing the same tunes and bands that i always fall to. but then scott gave me the new arcade fire, and god dammit its wonderful. every time it reaches the end of the cd, i think about what else i should put in, and it just loops around and i listen to it again. my commute is practically a reason to get more of these songs stuck in my head. it gets me up in the morning more than free chickfila breakfast tuesday (tomorrow is free mini 3pack!) in any case though, go find a copy of the arcade fire's neon bible. its outstanding.

so i was browsing through digg this morning and saw an awesome use of yahoo! pipes. and then i duplicated it to apply to me. it runs my latest tracks from last.fm through flickr and pulls images for you to look at. FUN. NERDY.

EDIT (feb.17): i just checked it out again, and for some reason its not working. sometimes last.fm doesnt bother to display my recent tracks, and then sometimes pipes wants to be all crappy. i promise that it worked the first time i did it though. ive tried a couple of different fixes, but they still didnt work. i have since given up.

two in one day! i guess im getting them out of the way so i dont feel guilty about not posting for the rest of the week.

prior to my departure for blacksburg, i made mix tapes! and boy were they enjoyable. ive learned my lesson about posting multiple media (see giant movie post), so if youre interested in what i put on the cds, browse through my audio stuff. all the recent additions plus some big singles from other artists already within my audio archive. i made 3 cds. its a long drive to tech. and what made it even longer was that i stuck around all day friday to work from 3-6 before leaving. dedication i tell you.

anyways, it was a good trip. attended a beach party (a basement covered in 3" of sand) and a communist party (wear red, drink vodka); saw the team get beat by georgia tech; and visited friends unseen this year. i had a lot of catching up to do, it makes me really regret not randomly im/facebook messaging people. so im starting that now. over the next couple of days im going to try and catch up with people ive let fall through the cracks.

so what are you lucky for? 2 posts, new music, and rekindling friendships. try it all in your own life!