Infultwated!

You know it's Xmas eve...

Podcasting

This is what podcasting looks like:

mile high club

it took me 30 years to achieve, but i've finally made it to the mile high club! that's right, i'm blogging from 30,000 feet (though a mile is only 5,280 feet). so i'm a many mile high club member.

there's not too much excitement on a flight, in fact i've take a picture with my eee pc's built in webcam.

granted this post itself is pretty unamazing, the fact that i'm doing what i'm doing is highly amusing. and the next time i post something like this will either be free wifi at the bottom of the ocean, or on the moon.

bedroom dj

while surfing new music a few days ago i came across the website for this pacemaker device. the pacemaker is some sort of ipod/dj/do-hickey. i can't say i was impressed by an overpriced and under powered portable dj solution, but after the quirky black light dance video explanation of the device was over, something caught my eye. free desktop dj software? oh i want, i want! where do i test drive this?

so i downloaded the program and imported my 26,000 songs. this wasn't a great idea, as it took 2 days for pacemaker to analyze each second of each song, in order to count bpm and song pattern. i don't have 26,000 songs worth putting into a mix, so in retrospect that's one thing i'd do differently. however, after two days of waiting for song analysis to complete, i stitched together 11 songs creating my first programmed mix.

i can't say that this is the best mix ever, in fact some of the transitions need a bit more tweaking, but the track selection is good (in my opinion).

1. Animal (Peter Bjorn and John Remix) - Miike Snow

2. Delorean - Big Weekend

3. I'm Not Alone (Deadmau5 Remix) - Calvin Harris

4. Tivoli (Original Mix) - Steve Angello

5. Jump In The Pool (Thin White Duke Remix) - Friendly Fires

6. Hometown Glory (Axwell Remode Mix) - Adele

7. Last Dance In Tokyo (Gloves ReWrite) - Golden Bug

8. Make You Mine (Fred Falke Remix) - Miami Horror

9. Death And All His Friends (MMMatthias Remix) - Coldplay

10. Until We Bleed (Adieus Remix) - Kleerup Feat. Lykke Li

11. Shooting Stars (Cassian Remix) - Bag Raiders

download my first mix attempt with this free software here. (right click - save as)

and here's a screencap of the mix and software, it's pretty simple to use:

edit:

i forgot to put a link! pacemaker.net

Abe

If it worked for honest abe, maybe it'll work for me?

friday night plans

vons, the hotspot

some items at hong's

heartbreaker

i was listening to the MSTRKRFT song feat. john legend titled heartbreaker.

The lion's den

Waking up at 5am on thanksgiving day is nice, seeing hong get doused
by a wave at 6am is priceless.

Royksopp

What Else Is There

I must like this shade of green

fishies

tumbling down

tumblr is nothing new to the world, but it's new to me.

http://high-entropy.tumblr.com/

i've started a tumblr account and have customized my page. this is more of a bulletin board for entertaining things that i would normally share via emails.

throw this into your rss reader of choice and follow along.

zelda haiku

i had to write a haiku for an rsvp to a yelp elite event:

hearts, swords, sheild, and flute

Gannon in dark waits for me

flying sword lights the room

bathrooms

i have a small obsession with public bathrooms, which has only grown since i've moved to sf. almost any time i visit an establishment i try to visit the restroom just to see what i'll see.

some places keep the bathroom just as up-kept as the rest of the establishment. if you're paying more than $12.00 for a hamburger, chances are some of that cost are for the nice bathroom facility, so use it!

cheap asian food almost always has the most cluttered, dirty, thrown together restrooms. they are second only to no-cover clubs or dive bar bathrooms.

there's nothing more comfy than an elegant and well planned restroom, and on the converse there's nothing more uncomfortable than a disgustingly dirty (and wet, everything is always all wet) restroom.

now allow me to drop an interesting factoid about myself, up until around middle school, i was scared of public bathrooms. i think i watched a scary movie with a public restroom scene, and couple that scary memory with the unreasonably loud public bathroom toilet flushing sound and you got a scared 8 year old.

pattern #6

yes, it blends!

"will it blend, that is the question?"

since the end of may i've picked up a new healthy habit: blending.

every morning i start my day with a "purple smoothie", a blended medley of fresh vegetables, fruits, and nuts. it's actually redish-purple.

in may i was using my roommate's black and decker blender to make a week's worth of smoothies. it wasn't anything fancy, and retails at target for $24.99. however, on a foggy san francisco sunday afternoon less than a month after i started this blending habit, the black and decker took it's final spin. i fried the motor. sparks, weird noises, a final slowdown of the blades and finally a small puff of smoke. luckily target was nice enough to exchange the blender and this time the ante was upped to a hamilton beach blender (retailing for $7.00 more than the B/D).

being cautious this time as to not kill the blender, i blended far less aggressively and gave the blender time to rest in between sessions. i think that the combination of thick smoothie turning and long duration of use heated the black and decker motor to a point of wire insulation melting, and ultimately a short circut. even with my more careful techniques, 2-3 weeks later the hamilton beach blender too fell victim to the wrath that is the purple smoothie.

killing blenders gets old pretty fast. and not having a purple smoothie to accompany my morning coffee can bring catastrophe. it's happened to me once so far, i didn't have my purple smoothie one monday morning and by 3pm i was struggling like i had not struggled in months. my energy level was non existent. i had problems driving home from work staying awake, at 5:30pm!!! i even took a two hour nap upon getting home before going to the gym. but i digest.

fed up with crappy blenders i went to my most reliable friend, the internet.

after a few minutes of searching it was apparent that there were two titans at the top of the blending food chain. vita mix and blendtec. but which is best??

i had started researching the blendtec/vita mix differences for weeks prior to the hamilton beach's last revolution. over 20 hours of forum reading, youtube video watching, and product review scanning about these two blenders). major differences noted were a 3hp vs 2.2hp motor, height (fitting under cabinets is a big plus for many users), and ease of cleanup.

from my extensive research i've concluded that from a finished product (the stuff you blend) standpoint, both work extremely well. even in side by side video comparisons both blenders produce blends of near identical blend-idness.

but i also observed some very interesting tidbits:

the blender is the center of the kitchen for those who are on the raw foods diet. the only other kitchen appliance they use that i was able to note was a food dehydrator. most of these raw foods folks (the ones that post blender reviews and videos) were more of the artsy type leaving out stats like power consumption, horsepower, rpm, etc. size, ease of use, and warranty were their top concerns.

vita mix - heavily marketed to the older generation. infomercials take place in a traditional studio kitchen with conservative middle aged upper middle class white people blending tasty home made ice cream and delicious almond butter.

blendtec - marketed to the younger generation/tech generation. anyone who's into youtube, iphones, and technology has seen blendtec ceo tom dickson's videos. he's internet famous for his award winning youtube channel "will it blend?". his stage is reminiscent of a 70's gameshow, where he wears a white labcoat, safety goggles, and occasionally blue heavy rubber gloves. the quest, answer the question: "will it blend?". tom blends everything from magnets to marbles, rake handles and cameras. his most famous vid appeared the day apple introduced the new iphone, and yes he blended that too. after blending whatever tom is blending he opens the lid to the blender while saying "_____ dust, don't breathe that in". then he dumps out blended dust and concludes with "yes it blends". one of my favorites is when a bundle of glows.

you've probably guessed that i chose blendtec over vita mix. i had 90% made up my mind when i saw that blendtec has 3horse power vs vita mix's 2.2, but 19.9 hours more research was needed to push me that 10%. after purchasing the blendtec i learned that tom dickson has a reputation for putting over the top power on little things. quickly tom is becoming one of my heros. also, check out the deal he made with jamba juice (they use his blenders).

today i blend smoothies into a silky smooth consistency in a fraction of the time i used to with out fear of frying yet another undersized made motor made in china.

SAVE

the day prior to sketching this i saw a documentary on burning man.

Chocolate Bananas?

Slurpee

this is how san diegans cool off on hot fridays, and there's no work to be done.

Saturday Dinner

Eat, sleep, repeat.

Self portrait

desk organizer design

i designed a desktop organizer shelf unit on my sketchpad. i made two, one of them has slightly different dimensions than the other.

Oakland/Brooklyn

i read an article that oakland is becoming the brooklyn of SF. i have never been to brooklyn, but if i go to brooklyn i'll be expecting BYOBBQ, live djs , dance offs, drum circles, and all around good people embracing a spacious backyard coupled with good weather.

Phoenix

last night i went to a phoenix show. they started off with "lisztomania", which is a great track, but i was slightly disappointed that they opened with it. i felt caught off guard -i wasn't pumped up enough to fully enjoy it. that soon shed and by mid lisztomania i was feeling phoenix to the max!!

things must be different in france, because there was none of the traditional band member introductions ie "and on the background vocals and lead guitar we have {plays guitar solo} this guy". they were just business, playing song after song after song with zero banter or hesitation. a few words were spoken when lead singer thomas mars said "we've never played this song live before, it's called fences". and at the end they said thanks, which pretty much wraps up the talking of the show.

i had a pretty large wantlist going into this concert: the new album has 2 singles, "1901" (footage of last night)and "lisztomania" (love this video mashup also), so they weren't really on my list as i knew these jingles would be in attendance. another single of theirs, and one of their most popular songs is "if i ever feel better" (also from last night), so i was sure they'd rock that one out too. "too young" from the lost in translation soundtrack was also a for sure at any phoenix show.

now some of the more obscure songs such as "love like a sunset" which is almost an 8 minutes song and "funky squaredance" which is almost a 10 minute song, i was not so sure they would play. but i hoped! nevertheless i found myself high 5-ing phoenix loving friends with excitement when the warfield started funky squaredancing. i especially liked how they created a funky squaredance sandwich with the bread being "rome" a song off of their latest album.

overall the concert was a huge success, and thanks to youtube i'm replaying the actual evening with footage shot and posted of last night's performance.