When there's no PBR, it's Simpler Times.
Hello, Lovine.com
Wherever you go, there you are.
When there's no PBR, it's Simpler Times.
We're back and ready to party!
If you haven't done so, you should check these guys out: http://www.radiolab.org/
They first caught my attention when I was listening to an episode of This American Life on NPR, which had a Radiolab segment. Instantly hooked. In a nutshell, both their shows remind me of what it feels like to be genuinely entertained. Not by passively being fed garbage in front of a television, but by finding myself asking questions and getting immersed into a story, which rarely happens when you have the attention span of a goldfish. Great stuff, and really put well together. On par with TAL. Which is a pretty high bar. In this decade of cheap thrills, it's always a great blessing to find gems in the rough and tumble that we call the internet (and the radio).
And so I could not contain my excitement when I heard via The Scenestar about a live taping at UCLA's Royce Hall. The first show sold out yesterday, and I was hanging around Ticketmaster's site until they stopped selling tickets at 5pm. I knew there were still seats open in the balcony, so I head to the box office alone. The only other friends who care enough to know who they are, are in SF (hi Kat and Basso) but I had no hesitation to do a solo flight, as usual. It's kinda weird to finally see what you're familiar only hearing. So when I heard the show's opening theme when Jad pressed a button on his monome as they were starting, it brought a real smile to my face.
Zoe Keating did the live scoring and a few numbers during the night. Love her music also, very rich using only a cello and a loop machine to layer her sound. I've seen other artists layer their sound using a loop machine (lucky enough to see John Scofield), but she creates a really complete orchestra and complex textures that you really need to see (and hear) to appreciate. I don't know why I just bought a Radiolab shirt and not her CD, but if she plays again anywhere near soon, I'm totally there.
I'm still amazed at the entire thing. And I didn't even get to write about the theme of tonight's show. I just hope I have my hair parted at the correct side. More on this next time.
My friend Big Zupancic lied to me and claimed that the reason why he was not replying to my texts inviting him for lunch, was that he was swamped with work. His wonderful girlfriend Karen Kay let the cat out of the bag and admitted that he actually just woke up after I sent the text and was late to work.
Fast forward 36 hours later (after randomly running into him and having a few beers), and I get pulled over by Makati police for defying a red light turning left into a one way street. Big is in the car behind me and pulls over to check if everything is alright. Long story short, he is one of the smoothest operators known to man and sweet talks me out of my impending traffic violation ticket.
With friends like Big, what me worry? I love you, Big.
My head is going to explode. As expected, my last full day on the field held more than this month's quota for stress, caused by massive disappointment in certain decision making skills of people you expect to know better. Sometimes it makes me think how futile my time is behind this monitor trying to get data in order, when apparently the real battle is where you aren't looking.
I need a drink.
And here's tonight's feature tambourine player:
http://hellonickel.tumblr.com/post/3886653730/happy-tambourine-player-seeking-band-got-any
I miss my Kat and Dog!!!
Well, somebody's been quite popular over at http://hellonickel.tumblr.com/.
If you're not careful, he might end up on your phone as well.
Why are people searching "How to have a girlfriend" on my search box?
Greetings from Guam. In another round of hamster wheeling, I laid out a 15-hour workday yesterday (Saturday) powered by an increasing addiction to coffee. It's Sunday and I'm getting kicked out of the coffee shop soon. Wrote and polished off a few macros to run as a morning job that consolidates reports (that are strictly designed for printing to paper - i.e. there are no columns and easy way to dump to Excel) across 6 disparate systems. Fun times.
Tomorrow is Monday. The End, is the Beginning, is the End. Bring it!!
Indeed the state of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but the most wretched are those who are toiling not even at their own preoccupations, but must regulate their sleep by another’s, and their walk by another’s pace, and obey orders in those freest of all things, loving and hating. If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life pp.31-32)
Just ran into this, via. It's not everyday that I find, or read things that immediately draw me in. I'm totally getting this book.
Greetings from the Mojave Desert, a little day trip for President's Day weekend.
When tomorrow comes, will we look back at yesterday and be proud?
In the beginning we have nothing. And when it ends, we leave everything behind.
Oops.
In the course of tonight's unforeseen late-night website housekeeping, I managed to completely destroy a few things on my blog. It's 1996 all over again here at Geocities and I'm putting up the equivalent perennial animated GIF that screams "Under Construction" in 16-color glory. Apparently I keep adopting tools that do not automagically correct themselves, seamlessly, and painlessly for all those concerned. Hence all the juicy errors and crap layout- the scabs of building my own fort outside the social network. I kept thinking about the mad crowd chanting the "F" word. No, I will not do Facebook because I like causing myself unnecessary pain and passionately seek the sensation of dried out eyeballs staring at the cold glow of a monitor typing code one line at a time in the middle of the night.
I hope I could say these words sooner rather than later: that I would like to invite you - dear stranger on the intarwebz - to say hello and throw me a bone on the comment system. Because a guestbook from the 90's don't cut it anymore, and I'm testing out a mew (metter than new) commenting system that logs you on using your social network credentials. Yes people, that means Facebook, Twitter, and of course your ATM pin.
Need. Beer.
Boss, our numbers are off. Let's call it a weekend?
Greetings from earlier today. Headed south towards the grapevine, cruising 55 on the 5.
We're back, Los Angeles.
