Music Mondays

Do Not Push - A Gotye Call Me Maybe Mashup by Pomplamoose


Now that you have both of those songs stuck in your head simultaneously, your brain will explode.

Music Mondays

Stars—Hold on When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It

Like everything else that comes from Stars, this song is exceptionally great. Shoegazing music was my life in '05-'06. It's great to see a band that continues to put out the same quality music that made me fall in love back then.

Things I Don't Love Thursday

Thursdays are usually my day to reflect on the positive, but today I thought I'd take a departure from that to stand on a soapbox.

For a few years, I have used a service called Outright to track my freelance profits and expenses. Because I always had a second job while freelancing, it was never much help, but it was still a clean, simple tool that I looked forward to using it when I switched to freelancing fulltime—until I got the news that Outright has been acquired by GoDaddy.

Quite some time ago I purchased the domain name I use for my portfolio. I did some research and I settled on GoDaddy because they came recommended by their very low introductory prices and decent but not stellar customer service. By men, mind you. College aged men. In pure Baader-Meinhof fashion I finally started noticing their extremely sexist ads. I had probably never noticed them before because at the time the ads never said what GoDaddy did. I kept them as my domain name registrar, but switched servers immediately. A week ago I moved my domain names to another registrar when they were about to expire, and I was happy to be done with them.

When Outright sent an email announcing they were acquired by GoDaddy, I initially thought, "oh no." But it's a free service that I like. I'm uncomfortable supporting a company that indirectly gives money/information to GoDaddy...but decided to see what they had to say before I made any snap judgements.

This line clinched it for me (emphasis mine):

Like I did, many of you probably recognize Go Daddy for its controversial Super Bowl commercials. Go Daddy is much more than a company with edgy ads, it is a company committed to customer service and helping small businesses grow online. And, by the way, Go Daddy’s advertising is shifting, as you’ll see in the upcoming Olympics. The commercials are evolving to focus more on what the company does to help its customers.

Um...back it up a bit, Outright. First, thanks for being all condescending and telling your customer base what GoDaddy is (lord knows GoDaddy never did). But are the commercials...sorry, edgy commercials going to evolve away from sexist trash, or is it just that cleverly edited topless women are FINALLY going to explain to us what, exactly, it is that GoDaddy does to help its customers? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

But let's hold the phone, here. Never mind their edgy offensive ads. Let's take a look at their support of SOPA (their stance ever wavering and always unclear). We could also talk about former CEO Bob Parsons trying to pass off shooting an elephant as a humanitarian act after getting tons of backlash for gloating about it in an Internet video. Afterwards, you can see poor Zimbabweans ripping meat from the elephant...all in bright orange GoDaddy clothing. But if their advertising is shifting, well, then. By all means, Outright...that's a horse of a different color!

Now, all of this is incidental. I left GoDaddy, so I have no actual beef with them—they can do whatever they want with their company, but I will no longer be funding my portion of it. In the past, the company has been a sexist, childish, boy's club—if they decided to change their structure top down...great!  But it wouldn't change how I feel. I'm really happy with my current web host—a company that uses wind farms to power their servers and does not have the second most sexist ads ever aired on TV in my lifetime (You're welcome, AXE). Their mascot is an inoffensive cartoon cow.

In the meantime, I will be making my own excel files and writing Outright a letter wishing them luck but telling them how disappointed I am with them. I guess them's the shakes in small businesses, and this will probably be a good move for them, but I will be happy to move on from yet another company controlled by GoDaddy.

Music Mondays

Lupe Fiasco—Around My Way  (Freedom Ain't Free)


This song is another departure from my regular listening, but I liked this song—surprising how something like this makes great background noise for browsing the Internet for pictures of wolves (another story for another time), because of it's energetic fervor. The video on the other hand...Well, it's very Paula Abdul circa 1989 meets X-Men (Cyclops' eyes, people.)

This is the first single from Lupe Fiasco's upcoming Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1. The Album Drops September 25th.

Good Times Music Mondays

Kitty Pryde & Riff Raff—Orion's Belt

This is a departure from my usual style of music, but I thought I'd include this Myspace-like track because the video reminded me of this adult arcade we used to go to called Good Time Emporium. Good Times was, just that—a place to play video games and go karts and laser tag and maybe get stabbed in the parking lot. The only arcade I ever knew to have an armed police officer at the front door at all times.

Bonus: some pictures of us looking (and being) really, really young, courtesy of a friend of ours who loved Good Times maybe more than we did.

Things I Love Thursday

Birds With Arms

Forget bird watching, birds with arms is the next best thing. See the tumblr here.

Happy Independence Day

Music Mondays—SCIENCE!

Mates of State—I am A Scientist

On July 3, Spare the Rock Records will release Science Fair, eighteen exclusive tracks — all sung by women and girls — themed around and benefiting science and engineering education for girls. The album will be on sale for $3 (JUST $3, PEOPLE), to support girl's foundational science education programs, from rural areas to the suburbs to inner cities.

This video was the first video to be released from this album.

Project 365 Update: June

June has been my worst month, by far. One of the reasons for this is that my DSLR has been on the fritz. Something inside is rattling, and for two weeks, we were unable to get it to work. The last picture I took before it broke was of J walking downstairs to grill our burgers. The next time it worked was when I photographed my Moscow Mule. It was as mysterious as it was concerning and if it breaks when we go on vacation I will blackout rage, I swear.

My favorite photo this month was by and far this one:

This is the first photo from one of my last packs of 600 Polaroid film. I was testing my SLR 680 to make sure it (and the film) still worked, and lo! It does. Maybe it will find its way to Europe with us when we finally take that vacation.

Music Monday

Twin Shadow—Five Seconds


Today's offering is this video from Twin Shadow. A B-movie and a new Bowie-esque synth-song all rolled into one. You're welcome.

Music Mondays

Leona Naess—Swing Gently


Ignore the fact that this song is from an episode of Private Practice that aired in December 2008 (Worlds Apart). Ignore the fact that I am not discovering "new" music this week. Also, ignore the ugliest video ever posted on the Internet because since 2008, no one has made a respectable video for this beautiful song. I came across this song because I have started watching Private Practice from the beginning again, and it struck a chord with me.

The whole album, Thirteen, is something I wish I had had in high school—maybe even in 2008. It's a little young, but I think that's the point, but this song just sways so melodically, and the title, Swing Gently, is exactly what it does.

I just downloaded this one track, though. I have enough angsty female pop vocalists on my playlist.

Things I Love Thursday

JUBILEE!!!


The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, marking her 60 year reign, happened June 2^nd-5^th. The Jubilee used to mark the 75th year of reign, but Queen Victoria withdrew from public life after Albert's death, and they decided to bump it up fifteen years then, and it's been tradition since.

IKEA decided to celebrate with the above marketing—a corgi dog (CORGI DOG OMFG).

Google did what Google does:

Even though I am in America, I am and have always been an anglophile at heart. I must admit I got sucked into this whole thing. My favorite part was still the corgmonsters.

Music Mondays

Hot Chip's new album, In Our Heads, comes out today, but you could have been streaming the full album this whole time! Only I didn't post this until today! What a bitch! Anyway, the streaming link is here, but seeing as how you should just buy it and all, I don't see how that's useful.

The song I chose to represent this album is If I Was Your Girlfriend—a Prince "cover" if you will. It starts out all Hot Chip, and then gets all Prince on you, but they riff the lyrics in a great, unique way. Pretty Much Amazing describes this song as a "slow burner." True, but if you listen to it fifteen times in a row like I did before I chose this song, it sticks to you like glue.

My House Is Never Cleaner

I have a school assignment due on Tuesday. During a normal semester, class meets once a week, but in the summer, classes meet Tuesday and Thursday. There's not a lot you can get done in 40 hours, so Thursday—Tuesday is when the meat of the work gets done. As a professional procrastinator, this is how a typical day goes during the semester:

"J just left to run errands and get some work of his own done...I should really get to work on this assignment. Let me sit down at my desk and focus."

"Hmmm...I have a lot of old emails. I should play the email game (emailga.me) and try to clear that out before I get started."

"Ah, Inbox Zero nearly achieved. Close the browser. Now I can start working."

"Is that dust on the floor? I need to sweep before I get started."

"Well, the floor is clean, but my desk is a mess. Better clean that up before I dirty up my assignment."

"Okay, my desk is acceptably clear. Just a cup of tea, and then I'll sit down and get to work..."

And so forth, and so on.

My house is never cleaner, and I am never more hydrated than when I have other, more pressing things to do.

Things I Love Thursday

99% Invisible—Guilt Free

I really enjoyed this 99% Invisible podcast about sustainability and design. They talk about the lunar-resonant streetlight project, which utilizes available moonlight instead of overwhelming it, and returning the cityscape to a more natural environment while still providing adequate lighting. The whole podcast is interesting, but what struck me as a designer was this part of the discussion: 

I think a lot of the current design discussion is about how to make design more relevant…how to make it part of these processes that really shape the world: government, all of the sort of processes that we don't think of being designs or having a relationship to design.

Climate change is a design problem, you know, the national debt is a design problem. All of these things are design problems in different ways if you expand the scope of how you think about it a little bit.

Our challenge as designers, really, is to expand that scope and to become part of bigger discussions.

This was a portion of our discourse during a graphic design class I am taking at MassArt this semester, and so the whole episode really struck a chord. The podcast itself is really interesting, too—definitely worth checking out (at 99percentinvisible.org)

This XKCD Comic


Although I rarely if ever think about a certain ex-boyfriend now that I'm happily married, sometimes I remember him—like when I saw this comic, which I had to laugh at because it's so uncannily true, it's almost like it was written about him.

As is usually the case, the mouse over is the best part: "I'll never forget you--at least, the parts of you that were important red flags."

Music Mondays

The West Coast may be the Best Coast, but the East Coast is the Beast Coast. Still, surf rock is pretty cool, I guess.

Project 365 Update: May

I thought May would be even better than April, but it wasn't. There was one week there that I just didn't feel like leaving the house, much less taking pictures. I don't really like any of these photos, but the one I chose this month is from Plumb Island, a 16 mile bike trip J and I took this month to go bird watching.

I like that the bird is the focal point against a neutral and kind of boring backdrop. I thought it was best in square format.

Music Mondays

Animal Collective—Honeycomb

Things I Love Thursday

Grilling

J has been eyeing this grill for a while now, and we finally ordered it on amazon last week. We spent this weekend grilling every meal we ate at home. Rain has put a damper on the week-time grilling, but the point of buying a propane powered portable weber was that it takes 20 minutes, tops, to have a delicious grilled meal, anytime we want.

Firing up the charcoal grill was so much work that we never bothered grilling for ourselves—it just wasn't worth it unless at least six people were eating burgers and dogs. We still have it, but we just plan on busting it out when we have company and want to spend the whole day grilling.


This grill is fantastic, and I can't wait to see what delicious meals we concoct this summer.

Bird Watching

via flickr user villes

We have started a weekly routine of riding our bikes to brunch on Sunday, and stopping at Mount Auburn Cemetery afterwards. We usually spend about 20-30 minutes at the cemetery watching for birds, and taking in the beautiful views. So far, we have seen turkeys, falcons, chipmunks, and other really interesting birds that I am not equipped to identify. Armed with a new pair of binoculars, though, we are going to start making the most of our cemetery walks and bird watch the hell out of Sunday afternoons. I am even going to get some bird identification books from the library.

I am officially a 50-year-old woman.

Music Mondays

2:54—Creeping