Dance, dinner, song

This weekend was fun. On Friday I went out to Friday Night Swing with the intention of having fun and ended up being a party pooper as I sat and chatted more than I danced. I don’t know what hit me but my lack of practice lead to a detrimental disinterest in dancing. Several people helped me begrudgingly dance a bit, reminding me that anyone can dance even if it’s just the basics.

Chipmonkey returned from Vegas, otherwise known as the land of burning casinos.
We ended up going to dinner with friends at Nola’s, a Cajun restaurant in Palo Alto. I’m not usually interested in that style of cooking but the food was great and I really enjoyed myself. I don’t think I’ll ever order a fillet again because the strip steak there was just so well seasoned.

These friends mentioned a funny online comedy piece they saw called Mr. Deity. It’s a rather funny series of sketches about God (Mr. Deity), his assistant, Jesus, and Lucy (Lucifer). The comedy is a little tongue-in-cheek and will be lost on anyone without an understanding of Christian parables, but I really enjoyed it.

From there we drove back to SF just in time to meet our other half for some karaoke at Do Re Mi in Japantown. I’ve been there a few times now and just can’t get into the feeling. I think that a little alcohol would smooth over my lack of singing skills – both for me and the others who must listen.

 

Christopher Walken dancing

If you thought this video of Christopher Walken doing a rendition of Weapon of Choice by Fat Boy Slim was funny… you may not have known that Mr. Walken got his way into show business as a dancer.

 

I don’t watch TV

I really enjoyed a recent This American Life episode of “What I learned from Television“. Act 1 is titled “29”:

This American Life contributor David Rakoff, who swore off TV in college, returns to it in dramatic fashion: he attempts to watch the same amount of television as the average American—29 hours in one week.

David tells a humorous story about his life and trying, even forcing himself, to watch TV. His first words are to swear off the “mightier than thou” and claims his lack of TV is not from elitism, but something much more profound.

Don’t miss out on their YouTube videos, and please support them. It costs over $100k per year just for podcast bandwidth!

 

Indie movie

I rejoyed watching Four Eyed Monster on YouTube, but didn’t donate or buy any of their stuff. I feel a little bad. I gave $2 to a stranger on the street out of guilt but didn’t give $3 to these artists who worked and then hoped for money.

The movie made me remember making mixed tapes, writing letter, sending emails, and chatting online. The mode of communication is slowed down and requires the speaker to think about what they say before saying it.

I really enjoyed this movie.

Update: ok, I ordered the DVD.

 

On the road

It seems all my writing will include book titles… but I’m on the road again. As people party it up at ETA in Vegas, I’m in Jolly ‘ole England teaching classes and trying not to lose my voice. I’ve never been much of a London fan. There’s nothing wrong with the city, in fact it’s not a bad place, but everything is so freakin expensive, I’m just turned off by the prospect of being here. That, and it’s not very different or challenging.

When I travel, I want it to be a little challenging. In Nigeria there was the chance of death; in Germany there is the language barrier; in Canada … well the Canadians might invade any day now; but in London there is no such challenge. I have another three days to get through and then the weekend is free. Chipmonkey arrives on Thursday and we will have the weekend together. Saturday will be touring the city and clubbing at night. Sunday will be Stonehenge.

I’ll be excited when I arrive in Paris next week and get to deal with not knowing the language. It’s like bouldering a difficult rock ridge, the act of navigating and ordering in another language. Every day things become more of an adventure, but not the bad kind like having a girl knock your glasses off your face in the middle of a dark club. (obscure references for those who know the stories.)

I think I will grade some tests before reading some more Rollins. I like his brute force approach to life, but his stoic solitary lifestyle does not appeal to me at all. Still, it’s an interesting read.

I was watching Jay Leno tonight and he had a good punk band playing called, “Three Days Grace“. I really liked this music; it’s punk but organized with a melody and not a chaotic mess.

 

Ravi Shankar – gay band?

There is a website Love God’s Way devoted to condemning the act of being gay, claiming that being gay is a choice.  None of what they say “jives with things like logic reason or generally accepted theology”.

Check out the “gay bands” section and you fill find names such as:

• Ravi Shankar
• Bjork
• David Bowie
• Kansas
• Eminmen
• Frank Sinatra

Ravi Shankar?  He plays the mandolin and there are no lyrics!  How can this be described as gay or bad?  *sheesh*

 

YouTube Nation

I’ve had the YouTube Nation song in my head all weekend…

 

Stark Raving Mad

I have a new favorite album to work/write along with: John Digweed’s Stark Raving Mad. Much like Underworld’s Everything Everything it has some nice straight beats interjected by short, form-fitting monolgues.

I was suprised to see that more people reviewed “Beaucoup Fish” on Amazon.com than they did “Everything Everything”.  Sure Beaucoup has some good songs including ‘Jumbo’ and ‘Push Upstairs’, but the Everything album has something for everyone.  It is the album I would give to someone who was just getting into electronic music.

What are your favorite tracks? albums?

(If you are looking for longue/ambient music you need to get Perfecto: Chills.  I have only heard volume 1, but there are also volumes 2 and 3.)

 

iPods reboot when playing podcasts

I love my iPod, and the case the Apple store employee advised I get. But ever since I upgraded the firmware on my 5th Gen (video) iPod some of the podcasts cause the system to reboot. This is the strangest thing because I didn’t know why some podcasts would have this effect and others would not. In fact, sometimes it was only certain episodes within a podcast subscription.

I searched and here is what I found.

I started to get comments on the site and emails about the latest podcasts crashing 5th gen video iPod’s and was scratching my head wondering why. Apple seems to have really dropped the ball with iTunes 7 and the latest firmware for iPods. Any audio file that is encoded at 64kbps at a sample rate of 32.000 khz or higher in mono with your EQ on on your ipod on will crash it (try to sit around and figure that combo out. If you guessed a lot of encoding and trial and error your a winner). Apple’s official answer to this is turn the EQ on your iPod off until they can fix the problem.

 

So if you turn the EQ off on your iPod it won’t crash. You could also start to listen to the podcast in iTunes for a second or two and re-sych your iPod, that also seems to work but in the meantime bear with us as we do more testing to figure out a better work around or wait till apple fixes what they broke.

 

This American Life – Podcastic!

I love many things about public radio (and NPR in particular), but nothing is as sacred and special to me as the radio show This American Life (TAL). For years they have sold copies of their show on Audible.com. Because of their loyal listening base and tech savvy people, some found out how to download the episodes from their web site in Real Audio format.

Starting with episode #203, TAL has started podcasting their show so everyone can download and listen to them for free. Damon pointed this out to me from his blog.