found_drama

Yesterday was A’s birthday. So we lived it up. Shirked some chores and ate decadently and played, played, played… Shopping, walking, eating, etc. And then: drinking.

Met up w/ friends in Burlington and circulated through a couple downtown establishments. Saw some knock-out mixing at Red Square - - 7″ Madness!!!

All in all, quite a night.

So, once again: Happy Birth(yester)day A!

currently playing: Helmet “Speechless”

UPDATE: Posted more pics to the Flickr stream… Start here and work backward. (Since you’ve already seen the image of A-Dog above…)

currently playing: Front Line Assembly “Infra-Red Combat”

I’m in this big building a la the Guggenheim except(?) for the fact that it’s pristine white and is a concert hall instead of a museum. The big show of the night is the first even symphony of the Manhattan Junior Players. Or something along those lines. An entire symphonic orchestra and all of the musicians are pre-pubescent. All of them. “Smug little fuckers,” I keep calling them. I’m trying to get into the orchestra pit to go Jack The Ripper on each and every one of them. There’s one particular little bastard that I’m after (I can’t recall his name now — Timmy? I don’t know) but while I’m at it, I may as well take care of them all. Just get it over with. But I get lost on my way in. There’s a set of stairs that I needed to go around but instead I go up and wind up heading all the way up to the catwalk. I get a good long (rather dizzying) look at the concert hall. It’s intense. But I’m a good two hundred feet above where I want to be. Wind back down the ramps to get to the bottom floor. By this point I’m in full evasion mode because it’s gotten out what I’m there for. And then when I get to the bottom, just moments away from my feat’s fruition, I get busted by an usher who just happens to be a co-worker from Carolina. Put to an abrupt halt, I’m ushered out where the scene fades through white.

A friend of mine mentioned recently he’s considering an iPod mini but asked: “How do you pick what to put on there?” The obvious point being: Clearly, you have more than 4 GB of music…. So I decided to share with him how I keep my tunes fresh:

Sync the following playlists:

• This Is Rabbit’s Revenge - match all: My Rating is greater than 3 stars; Play Count is less than 20; Limit to 1 GB selected by most recently added
• This Is Also Rabbit’s Revenge - match all: My Rating is greater than 3 stars; Date Added is not in the last 90 days; Last Played is not in the last 30 days; Limit to 1 GB selected by least often played
• This Too Is Rabbit’s Revenge - match all: My Rating is greater than 3 stars; Play Count is greater than 10; Playlist is not “This Is Rabbit’s Revenge”; Playlist is not “This Is Also Rabbit’s Revenge”; Limit to 1 GB selected by least recently played
• and special bonus round Top 100 - match all: My Rating is greater than 3 stars; Limit to 100 songs selected by most often played

So, gentle reader: Your method?

Steven Johnson has an open letter to Hillary Clinton re: GTA:SA and “Hot Coffee”. My favorite part:

Another key question: Of all the games that kids play, which ones require the most mental exertion? Parents can play this at home: Try a few rounds of Monopoly or Go Fish with your kids, and see who wins. I suspect most families will find that it’s a relatively even match. Then sit down and try to play “Halo 2″ with the kids. You’ll be lucky if you survive 10 minutes.

currently playing: Underworld “Cowgirl”

Thanks once again to everyone that sent get-well wishes and other sentiments of that nature during my recent episode(s). Seem to be cleared up now. We’ll see if that sticks.

Elsewhere… Do you remember the first time you smoked a cigarette? And even before you took a drag off the thing your body was telling you ‘No man! Terrible idea!’ Remember that? It does that when you pull into a KFC parking lot, too.

Off to work…

currently playing: Mike Vandenberg “Spooky”

the Cutting Edge (56% dark, 56% spontaneous, 16% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | DARK Your humor’s mostly innocent and off-the-cuff, but somehow there’s something slightly menacing about you. Part of your humor is making people a little uncomfortable, even if the things you say aren’t in and of themselves confrontational. You probably have a very dry delivery, or are seriously over-the-top. Your type is the most likely to appreciate a good insult and/or broken bone and/or very very fat person dancing. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: David Letterman - John Belushi

Brooke and I really are twins. I’m sure of it.

Boing Boing on Disney World’s autonomous zoning…

A and I got our kayaks out on the water again (so soon!) today. This time the destination was Wrightsville Reservoir:

A bit closer than our last trip and a bit more paddle friendly. (Though perhaps ironically we found the directions for it on a website devoted to area waterskiers.)

Follow up Dr’s appointment yesterday panned out fair enough, I suppose. Symptoms have largely subsided at this point and there didn’t appear to be any evidence that further testing would be required. We’re sticking with the fluid-in-the-ears hypothesis but I’ve been instructed to make an appointment should the dizzy spells come back with their prior severity and/or frequency and/or duration. So that’s well and good. Or at least well and good enough.

Elsewhere…:

• Pete comments further on CC licensing — which I kind of expected. He raises some good (counter-)points. Esp. w/r/t/ not confusing CC licenses for Public Domain. As for the rights-holders vs. consumers balance of power question… We’ll have to go there eventually.
• BoingBoing has a thread going on re: artists-in-residence at SF Recycling & Disposal. This feels timely and poignant for some strange reason. Earlier today I had a brain meltdown when the full recursive (immersive?) nature of NASCAR advertising hit me. And don’t even get me started on the damn spoon… Found objects and recontextualization abound, apparently. (I’m a long way from home, Joanne…)
• TUAW posts re: automated OS X back-ups via rsync which is like soooooooo 1999 but definitely extra handy. If you haven’t already: take your pick.
• Last but not least: Happy Birthday to my dad! He got one of these for his birthday done up with photos from his trip to Madagascar last year. He had hundreds of awesome pictures — stunning for every reason you can think of. And one of my favorites (for the juxtaposition):

Now to return to the land of the living and keep A from murdering neighborhood children…

currently playing: BT “Beta (3AM Mix)”

Top 10 - The Sampo Method - (35:47)
Saturday, July 23, 2005 6:13:55 PM

1. Delorian - Atomica
2. Salt - Atomica
3. Sir Wellington Du Beuf - Amish Rake Fight
4. Perdition - Micronaut
5. Another One Bites Da Funk - Daft Queen
6. Invention 1 / Microprocessor - Micronaut
7. Satisfaction Skank - Fatboy Slim vs. Rolling Stones
8. Dub Will Tear Us Apart (Rough Mix) - Jah Division
9. Hot Lovers - Rapture vs. Tiga
10. tomorrow - s.sturgis

Last Played is in the last 1 week, Date Added is in the last 2 weeks, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by most often played.

Via MeFi … MASH-UPS!!! Worth it, if only for Another One Bites Da Funk…

currently playing: Daft Queen “Another One Bites Da Funk”