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Why the hell not, best music of 2010 list.
Thursday, January 27th, 2011In no particular order, albums I enjoyed this year.
Geographer – Animal Shapes EP
I’ve know Mike Deni since college and became fast friends with the the other guys in the band when they came to play Cincinnati’s Midpoint festival. I was a huge fan of Mike’s voice back then, and I’m worried my judgement may be a little clouded, but this record is really spectacular. Brian is a human metronome on percussion and Nate rocks the cello like a mofo.
I defy you to listen to Verona and not want to hear more.
Anthony Jeselnik – Shakespeare
I listen to a lot of comedy. Anthony Jeselnik is fucking incredible. He is a borderline sociopath and cocky as hell, but fucking brilliant and brutal with his writing and delivery. By far the best comedy album of the last few years. He’s perfect.
Anais Mitchell – Hadestown
I went to college with Anais as well. This is her folk opera about the Orpheus myth. It’s on righteous babe records. She can play guitar and has a beautiful voice. Definitely listen to this record in its entirety, it will transport you.
Celph Titled - Nineteen Ninety Now
Truthfully I’ve spent most of this year digging back into hip hop, which is probably why I’ve enjoyed this new album so much. He’s from Tampa, is Cuban and will tell you the rest of his story in this track. Kind of reminds me of Brother Ali a little bit.
Pretty Lights – all of them
My buddy Beau (I’d link to his blog but he never updates it, ok, twitter) turned me onto him. I unfortunately missed seeing him at Moogfest because we had to leave early, but he makes some pretty awesome beats and I’m sure you will enjoy listening to him.
Super bonus, all of his music is available for free download at his website.
Lorn
Lorn was the suprise act of Moogfest this year. He makes some really awesome beats.
Check this, and if you like, his album is a little chiller, but hits hard.
Garotas Suecas
They have a great 7″ and a new album out. It’s a fun, summer chill out party album.
Other notables that I liked, but are probably on a million other best 10 lists.
The fact that I love the Jonsi album makes me feel like I’m turning into Bob Boilen, but that’s ok, it’s fantastic.
Best Coast also put out a great album this year. Neal Young’s Le Noise was great. So was the Broken Bells record.
There’s a ton more, but that’s worth dumping from my brain. Hope you enjoy something in there.
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A *must* for Magento Developers
Monday, January 24th, 2011I’m relatively new to Magento, at least in the hardcore, enterprise-y way. In my freelance work, I’ve done two small Magento sites. Basic store configurations, nothing crazy. Since joining CSG, I’ve dug pretty deep into Magento Enterprise.
Anyway, Alan Storm is a hero, and his site is a must-read.
He also has a killer plugin (Commerce Bug) that has been immensely helpful to understand what’s going on in a Magento page.
Anyway, definitely buy it, you won’t regret it.
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Tuesday, January 4th, 2011Life has changed a lot this fall, nearly all for the better.
After living in Athens, Georgia for about 4 months, we were looking for a new place to go.
The Criteria: Near Horses. Within cycling distance to a downtown with some culture. Access to family and friends. Nature.
Anyway, somewhat out of the blue, my old colleague Dave sent me a great invitation to apply for a job at his new employer. As a big bike fan, I was completely psyched to work with some awesome brands: Cannondale, Schwinn, GT, Mongoose, Sugoi….
Part of me feels like a bit of a corporate sellout, but they’re more like the Matator or Sub-pop of the bike industry than major label.
Anyway, the job and location were too good to be true. So I took the position as a Web Engineer and found a great (temporary) crash pad in downtown Bethel, CT. The job is pretty fantastic, working with an excellent small team of Web Marketing and IT folks. It has been somewhat more corporate than I’ve been used to, dealing with some politics slowing down the implementation of technology, but much less bs than other bigger companies (by bigger I mean more than 2 people 
)
Anyway, we’ve got a crazy gameplan of work, and it’s nice to work with people with budgets. I won’t get too technical here, but we’ve got a bunch of Magento Enterprise licenses and some serious cloud infrastructure.
Great Bicycle Shop
Monday, November 1st, 2010This was sent to me by my dad.
Streaming Media, Movies, TV, Audiobooks and others
Monday, October 25th, 2010I consume an above-average amount of media, watch a lot of movies, listen to a lot of music, etc.
I do work for a vinyl record pressing plant, so I’m obviously a big fan of the medium, but truthfully, I listen to music more via a computer than a turntable. Sad, but true.
At this point buying CDs seems ridiculous unless I’m at a show or it’s the only way to get the music.
I occasionally buy digital albums via amazon or itunes. Anyway, I’ve hit the point where streaming makes sense. I’ve been a netflix subscriber ($10 / month) for a long while, and it’s fantastic. They have almost any movie I could want. (with the exception, obviously, of newly released pirated films) And I’ve been comparing Grooveshark ($3 / month), MOG ($5-10/ month), etc. They all have their benefits, and a pretty comprehensive catalog.
Then you hit audiobooks. I was looking for a book I wanted to listen to recently. And wow, for only a $15 / month audible membership, I can download ONE AUDIBOOK PER MONTH!!
I’m moving to a new place soon, why would I bother with cable when I can queue up everything I want to watch between netflix, hulu, mlb.tv and torrents and watch at my convenience. (ASIDE: HBO/Showime – your models are fucked. Why do I have to subscribe to premium cable to then be able to buy your service. Sell it, streaming only, let me get it via my computer / boxee / googletv. Because otherwise, I’m just going to pirate your shows.
I don’t 100% agree with Mark Cuban’s idea re: social gaming on internet enabled tvs.
But netflix is definitely going to destroy hulu at the rate things are currently going.
What’s the end game? Seems like eventually all media will be in centralized libraries and everything will be streaming for monthly fee. Whatever. At this point subscribing to cable television seems akin to getting a landline.
The founder of imeem gave a talk at startup school discussing how fucked you are if you’re trying a music startup.
The best investment are companies making the best deals with content providers (Netflix) and companies putting broadband everywhere. Long-range wireless, whatever comes after Sprint 4g.
Let’s get to the future already.
Great list of tools for start-ups
Monday, October 25th, 2010Sweet wiki of start-up tools. Only one glaring omission – RepositoryHosting.
Keep Reading » Comments OffRidiculous Bikes
Friday, October 22nd, 2010My neighbor Steve Klocke basically just ruined my weekend by sending me a link to CycleExif.
It’s not Bike Porn (probably NSFW) but it’s essentially Bike Porn.
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