pasketti

today I made some spaghetti!

javacat cafe

hanging out at javacat café fighting the powers of wep and enjoying the weekend sun.

beer

mmmmm beer *drool*

Broken Present

it's too bad that crate & barrel can't ship items packaged safely. :(

the oldest is the youngest

there's a concept that i've known most of my life, but just recently have become aware of. the oldest child in a family, is normally the youngest child among their friends. however simple and frankly incorrect my hypothesis may sound upon the first read, there's more to it than a comparison of years.

children who are the oldest in their family (physical years), are the pioneers of the children in their family. father and mother are too old to be "cool" so the child has to find cool on their own, which is usually tv, friends, school, etc. these children are normally a bit less mature and hip than others their age who have older siblings.

on a daily basis the oldest child spends time with their younger, immature siblings. they may be accustom to watching nickelodeon after school because that's what little sister wants to see. whereas the children who have older siblings come home to mtv reality shows about million dollar birthday parties and the next cool bands. in a sense, the oldest lives much 'younger' than their peers who have guidance from older brothers and sisters.

i remember the first time i heard a friend of mine use the word "sick", in a way that meant something good (like the word 'bad' in the 80's). i came over to his house on a summer day, to hang out and listen to music. we were 14 or 15 years old, and rap music bonded us. i had just purchased a new cd, and he had a few new ones for me to listen to. his older brother had given him a hackey sack, and he showed it to me while we were jammin' some urban anger in the suburban comfort. he said to me "look at what my brother gave me, isn't that sick. it's a sick hackey sack isn't it?"

i paused for what felt like 15 seconds but must have been just one or two. "yea, that's pretty (pause) sick." minutes later i heard his older brother down the hall on the phone, talking about how something was "sick", the good sick.

i'm the oldest of three. and even today i feel the young-ness of being the oldest. there are things that others are aware of, awaiting, shooting for that i'm slowly discovering exist. i feel like the younger one, the more inexperienced, even though i'm the oldest child.

roaring into the new year

granted i'm a few days late in posting up my celebration of 2009's birth, but blogs can now be backdated -time holds no power here.

we had a roaring 20's themed party. yes i bought that hat, and plan to wear it no later than oct 31 2009. perhaps i'll be a red suspender guy from the 20's!

i had a great new years eve celebration, as did everyone i celebrated with. finding the right new years eve celebration is normally a diamond in the rough. $150.00 cover charges, virtually no taxis, bad weather, entrance lines, lines a the bar, and the list goes on.

i've started 2009 off right. it feels like the first day of school. everyone starts out with a 4.0 gpa on the first day, all you need to do is maintain it till graduation.

photogene elsie

i got a new app called photogene for my iphone, and goofed around with it on a lazy sunday afternoon. of course i hired elsie to be my photography subject.

mix tapes, mix cds, and playlists

back when i was in middle school, cassette tape was the medium for purchased music. tape players were the method of playing owned music. and after i had collected twenty or thirty tapes, cd's came into my life. the compact disc was louder, cleaner sounding, and best of all it was able to perfectly rewind or fast forward to the beginning of each song. the problem with cds was their high cost. $17.99 + tax to a person who made only $20.00/week allowance is not feasable. that allowance paid for clothes, shoes, entertainment, and contributed to savings.

the only way to satisfy my starving hunger for new music was to purchase cds, and blank tapes, then record the CD to the tape. afterwards the cd would be returned to the music store (an opened cd could not be returned for a refund, only store credit). you were allowed to return cds 3 times, so the third time was normally a cd that i knew i wanted to keep. remember that this time period did not have the option to listen to an artist's music online, there was no itunes music store or amazon.com. usually cds were purchased blindly, based on the cover.

usually a cd contained 1-3 songs that were listenable. thus, the ultimate listening experience came from mix tapes. having a tape with good song after good song required lots of time and effort. choosing the songs normally took the least time, it was the recording process that required not only constant attention, but also calculations.

this time period is where i remember mixes at their height, at least in my little world bubble.

shortly after, computers and internet came into my world of music. mp3, cd-r drives, napster, downloads, uploads, wav converters, and blank cds threw everything into orbit. the method to buy a cd, record the good songs to tape, return the cd, and repeat was now obsolete. with napster + a cd writer possibilities were endless. however, time seemed to always be spent downloading and hoarding, instead of listening and creating. time spent making quality mix tapes was time that could have been better spent discovering the next artist. instead of creating and sharing a great mix, an instant message was sent "hey friend, download this artist. you'll love them."

i made a ton of mix cds for myself, they took virtually no time and energy. however, since they were so effortlessly crafted, the quality of my mix cds were far inferior to the quality of my mix tapes. the idea that if i really wanted to, i could sit down and pound out the ultimate mix cd as i had every resource at the click of my mouse button. i never ended up making that ultimate mix. i just continued to create crappy mixes (in 15 minutes). i did stick to one rule, always put the best song on track number 9. i'm not sure where that came from, but i've formed a philosophy about track 9 and will discuss that at a later date.

ff to today, and cds are obsolete. the playlist is the new cd which was the new cassette. everyone has an ipod, strike that, everyone has more than one ipod. shuffle, iphone, ipod classic, ipod nano, and the list marches into the sunset. there is no use for a cd that only contains 15 songs, when the smallest ipod carries 250.

yet the trend continues, and this is where my sadness increasingly grows. when it was too much time and effort to make a mix, beautiful mixes were created. now that infinitely more resources are at our fingertips, it brings me down to think that i can count the number of good playlists given to me in the past 3-4 years on one hand. three of those quality playlists are a traditional birthday-present mix given to me by michael, a dj who creates compilations for the world famous pacha, and spins records weekly at establishments in the LA area.

it all boils down to a quote i've used one too many times:
"What may be done at any time will be done at no time." - scottish proverb

computers?

every once in a while i look at my bedroom, and think to myself... why do i have so many computers. immediately afterward i take a picture and grin.

i'm losing my edge

lcd soundsystem has a few songs that just make me smile. when tracks like daft punk is playing at my house, yr city's a sucker, and all my friends start playing on my ipod i have to listen to them through to the end.

one song i've always had quite a strong affinity for is losing my edge.

the song starts out mellow, and simple. james murphy starts off talking about the kids, and how they are coming up -surpassing him. and you feel that this song is about james losing his edge. until he says "but i was there". that's when one eyebrow raises and you wonder, is this song really about him losing his edge?!

"I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks."

slowly he talks about how he's old, and not 'cool'. but he gets it. and the kids who think that he's losing his edge, still think he's losing his edge.

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

the song is just under 8 minutes long. you didn't notice it, but ever so gradually the music and the vocals are picking up steam.

"I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know."

the song continues to crescendo, and the lyrics start to mention artists, locations, and events that shaped the music we have today. the picture is painted so clearly towards the end of the song. james, who's never clean shaven, probably cuts his own hair, and has the physic of a computer programmer standing over a skinny tattooed 22 year old wearing tight pants, a tight vintage 'ironic' shirt, and neat accessories from european countries, a hipster.

and then it ends. the song soothes out, and you realize that there's no hate here. this isn't in the same fashion of tupac vs. biggie. this is simply a demand for some respect.

"But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice."