pocketsnacks

Just trying out some of the FXin this new app for the iPhone, Photo fx.

There is a site called “8tracks” that lets you upload mp3’s and the assemble them into an 8 track mix. Kind of like one side of a mix-tape*, which is no doubt a historically brief art form which has been mostly lost and replaced with mix CD’s (not the same at all) and play lists. Personally I don’t do the play list thing much.

So this is just a few tracks, uploaded and arranged, that I thought I would use to test this thing.

*I think one of the great aspect of a mix-tape over a CD (or playlist) is the fact that you get two sides. You get to come up with an opening track for both sides, as well as a closer for both. And if you were into the art the the mix-tape, then you understand how important it can be to seek out and place the right songs there.

I have been using last.fm since about april of 2005. So for almost 4 years it has been tracking what I listen to, making charts based on that, as well as recommending me new bands, finding neighbors with similar musical tastes, and also creating a number of radio stations for me, based on my listening habits, tracks I have “liked”, etc.  I know lot of people use Pandora, which I did try out way back when it was new, but I just didn’t like what it spewed out at me, plus I just really dig having my own personal charts made out of what I listen to.

Anyhow, the point of this blurp was that recently last.fm held a hack day to see what developers could build in a day using last.fm’s api. One of the cool ones to come out of it was something called songcolours which analyzes your charts and spits out a colored pie graph, a phrase and some songs, broken down by color.

Honestly I have no idea what it all represents, but I found it cool. My phrase was “sky lucy diamonds world river sun”. Admittedly I have been listening to various versions of “Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds” recently.

I assume this with change as newer songs get into my charts, but here is mine.

Over the past few years, I used to catch bits of a radio show on NPR that always caught my attention and would suck me in, but I never knew when it was on or exactly what it was. I finally did some investigating a while back and discovered it was WNYC’s Radiolab.

Since then I think I haven listened to every episode from all 5 seasons. It is kind of sciencey, but really more just about curiosity. Every episode they pose a question, sometimes a very seemingly simple and obvious one, and then explore it. Usually revealing that it was not such a simple question after all.
Questions like, why do we sleep? Why do we laugh? What is music?

They attempt to answer these question with interviews and sort of, audio collages and stories. And they employ some really nice audio editing, sounds and music. It is really just great radio, and it feels very new and fresh and smart.

They have every episode available to listen to online, or download at their website, as well as extras that didn’t make it into the show (which is an hour long). You can also grab it at iTunes for free, but they don’t have as many episodes.

It has been two years since being back in Minnesota, and now I have returned.
I didn’t intent to stay away for so long, but I was broke last Xmas, in the middle of a desperate job hunt and for some other silly reasons, ended up not going home and not spending the holidays with my family for the first time in my life!
I don’t intend to make that a habit.
Quite the opposite. Family is awesome and important and I don’t keep in touch with mine as well as I should.

Ok. And now some photos from my iPhone!
For some reason, the color on them looks a bit washed and makes them seem like some polaroid from the 70’s, but I am cool with that.

Snowy runway:

Plane to plane:

Frozen McKusick Lake:

I recently become one of the sheeple who got his hands on an iPhone.
Within a day or two I was searching for interesting apps, and I Googled “trippy iPhone apps” and the main thing that came up were a few links for RjDj.
It is trippy and it is great and is one of the most inventive uses of the huge waste of time in my pocket that is the iPhone.
I’m not sure I can even describe it very good, but essentially what it does is, using your earbuds w/ the mic on it, it takes in sounds from your surrounding area, and remixes it.
It’s delays it, loops it, pitch bends it, and more.
There are multiple “albums” that all do different things to the sounds.

Personally, I love it. I think it is fun as hell, but it seems to fall into to camps with different people. Some people really dig it, and some people throw off the earbuds in an instant because it just freaks them out. They think it is what “crazy” people must hear.

Whatever. Those people are living in some booring comfy world. Screw em.

Anyhow, if you have an iPhone, at the very least, install the free version.

This evening I took a bus to go and see the “Australian Pink Floyd” at the Fillmore (easily one of my favorite music venues anywhere) but much to my dismay, it was sold out by the time I got there.
I stood around with a bunch of other sad sacks trying to score a ticket. Most guys did, a few resorting to paying an ass load from some scalpers. But not me. After some time, I gave up and hopped back on a bus and headed home.

I got off near union square and stopped and listened to some band on the corner. They were kinda jammy but pretty good.

After it all I ended up buying some new Godzilla slippers.
New? Yeah well I have had another pair for almost, cripes, 15 years? I have worn the hell out of them, mainly at parties, while wearing a whole lizard costume (which everyone assumes is a dinosaur costume). The new ones aren’t as cool, but I had to get them because as I have discovered, these things don’t come around often!

This is sad and nerdy. But fun.

So… much to the probable dismay from Mister Jason over at Braintoast, I have, for the time being, opted to slap on a Word Press template. I can probably come up with something better (that is debatable), but it will take me a while and I’d rather get some things rolling on here now, and I am less likely to do that if the whole thing is still sitting in that default word press theme.

So we’ll see what happens here now. Possibly some mobile posting. More than likely mostly pointless posts that will interest mainly me. But that really is the main purpose of blogs really isn’t it? I mean, obviously there is a thought that it would be nice to have some readers and like minded opinions, but really it is a place to verbally wank off about some weird video, or app, or something odd seen on the way to work.

Anyhow. Here is to trying once more to keep this thing active and alive.

So this is just a little test to see what posting is like via the iPhone.