this must be the place....goin strong , yeah baby!!!

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Romance Tips #2: Goddess Worship

Everyone take a chill pill, and read what this guy has to say:

but remember kids...
"Keep you communication appropriate to the gate number that you find yourself at. Appreciation the curve of a woman's breast, for example, if she happens to be the cashier at the supermarket, would equate more to harassment than worship."

BONUS 1995 NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME FOOTAGE:

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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Romance Tips #1

REPLACE THESE STARS WITH HOMEPAGE SUMMARY<-->"I smell a new column coming on." E. Saucepot's words, not mine, ladies and gentlemen. I must oblige.

So what is it I've been learning out here in this crazy world? Romance tips that's what, and I've come to share em with you.REPLACE THESE STARS WITH FULL POST<-->

One I really like, a Lil' Wayne quote, "you can never erase the stain of confidence." Are you comfortable being you? Yeah, that's what I like to hear, don't let anyone take that away from you! Even when she's treating you like a dog. Who know's, with the stain of confidence, you may be able to turn that into "cute lost puppy" and that could be your in. Never give up!!

Oh yeah, and another thing...the question no ones been asking, but maybe they should:

What's the ideal date scenario?

I know those in "The Game" "community" would say you are never supposed to go on dates. That may be true if you are trying to get laid with some tramp off 6th street, maybe dating is not right for you, but let me tell ya, there are some classy ladies out there, and they are not gonna just bang you because you "neg"ed them in front of their sorority sisters...they don't even have em!!! Now That's Class.

**
your mind just exploded
**

So yeah, when faced with a situation like this, a dating scenario, I know the drill...in addition to being of average looks, I'm not a cool guy. But I have a little thought experiment I like to run, it goes like this..."If i WAS a cool guy, what would I do in this situation?" This can be a very valuable thought experiment, because many times the answer is as simple as "don't call her right now, even though you really want to." Duhh!! why were you going to do that anyways?

But what about a date? A cool guy wants to go on a date, because a cool guy wants to spend time with the girl. That's the whole point right? But no pressure, no other people is best IMH-romance-tip-giving-O, and for god's sake don't let it drag. A first date is not a prog record. "Double Live" is about record 5 or 6 if I'm not mistaken, and usually only to get through the end of a bad contract. I think we've all been there.

First date, it can be a standardized affair. Why not? How do you think that got invented in the first place? For a major babe, you have to "wow", but you are gonna have to do that anyways, trust me, we are gonna need to set up a separate plan for that. You're not gonna wow her by going bowling instead of getting coffee. Cut out all the bullshit and just get the coffee. You are sitting down, she is sitting down, there is a mild stimulant involved making you both naturally feel good. If things are going real well, test the waters and invite the lady to the park for a smoking of a J, but if she's the motivated type, she's probably too busy, and also a bit wary of smoking J's late at night with a stranger.


But say you don't get there and it goes well, what about the second date? Now for a good tip, an unbeatable combo really: morning time, park, and J. You wanna play it sassy, throw a picnic on there, but sassy is not really cool. "What would a cool guy do?" I donno, I think he might just stick to the basics. What can go wrong? You throw the picnic maybe you are making it too much pressure for her. Really, you just got coffee one time, and now you are making a goddamn picnic???

But you don't want to just sit there...unless...

Unless you have a J handy, and now its time to flip it on her "if she was a cool girl what would she do?" I think she smokes it. Last time I checked, there was a heavy correlation, if not causation, between weed and coolness, and second date is a little early for her to be blowing her "I'm not cool" non-smoke rings in the air, because she is not even smoking.

The upside to this plan, you both end up spacing out a little bit, and then you are comfortable being around each other just spacing out. Congraduations, you have just successfully played the "I'm comfortable being me" card, and you found out if she's comfortable being her as well. And even if she's not, maybe the weed just took over. What could be better?

You get that baseline down, and who knows, maybe she will want to see what you are doing that night, the ball is in her court, but you have done your best.
I love you all

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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Spiked Punch Live Phonecast

Tit for tat, you usurp my posts, I usurp yours. Totally kidding by the way but this is a better way to say 'Im sorry' I think.

How did I miss the Spiked Punch web/phone/pod/beachcast?!

It's really awesome and anyone reading this blog would be losing out by missing this one!
http://phoningitin.net/shows/532-Spiked-Punch <-that there's the link


<-that there's the music

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Sowy!!

hey guys,

im sorry for that downer of a last post. I got all in freakout mode from bein by myself, but I want everyone out there to know I am staying positive, despite the Iraq war. Good vibe radio waves. I really just wanted to post to say I'm sorry, especially for Spaming a bunch of shit after J's awesome post about some sort of technical jargon related to 30 year old synthesizers, which I thought was really cool, and completely didn't understand (you really should go back and put some tags on that post so when people search it in the future it will show up on google), but I suppose I should post something funny as a way to make up for it, so here's the trailer to "The Ladies Man" starring Tim Meadows:



BONUS VIDEOS:
"yeah we did some pretty messed up junk, heh heh heh"


"I am a master of greco-roman wrestling" and "10-4 apricot"


"whoops, butterfingers"


"And I am lookin at a half empty bottle of Courvoisier which means we are just about out of time"

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Sunday, July 25, 2010

2010 controversies

we are over halfway there guys! what shook us to the core in 2010?

lets ask wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2010_controversies

OK, we've got 5 big ones...

* Arrest of Bradley Manning

* Boobquake

* Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

* Newsweek gay actor controversy

* 2010 Tonight Show conflict

Hmm, that first one, never heard of that guy, lets come back to it. Boobquake, apparently 200,000 women shook the earth with their boobs. Some people liked it and some didn't. Controversy ensued. Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, yeah I think I remember hearing about that, the South Park guys did that right? Also some guy in Newsweek said gay guys can't convincingly portray straight guys. Good thing America still has bros around like Bruce Willis to get the job done for us, otherwise, I think we might have some sort of national identity crisis, especially now that I hear mr. Braveheart Mel Gibson is leaving the country. Maybe he's just looking for some "freeedddooooom" (isn't that from that movie?) And I don't think anyone is forgetting Free Coco any time soon.

But wait, what was that first one tho?
22 year old Army bro thinks he's upholding the constitution by exposing murder by the US Army to wikileaks, even tho his CO clearly told him to stfu? I think I saw something about that on the cover of cnn.com for a day, about 30 seconds before our country went back to forgetting we are in endless war in two different countries right now (with towelheads, its ok). Fight them over there so we dont have to fight them over here, i think. So they threw Bradley in the pen without charge for a month and now they do charge him and he's looking at 55 years and being denied lawyers? Sounds like you done fucked up, bro. First rule about hackerclub: dont talk about hackerclub. That's actually the second rule as well. Oh well, good luck man. I'll be sure and cry some Lindsay Lohan sized crocodile tears for you and your mama if they come down with a guilty verdict, but I guess there are worse things than going to jail indefinitely for a good cause, like say, being one of the 5500 dead soldiers, or 1000x? dead Iraqis or Afgans (that x? means I have no idea how many 0s there are supposed to be), or watching the American economy go down the drain because we are too busy spending money on this shit (although maybe they'll let you do that too...do you get TV in military jails?)

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Saturday, July 24, 2010

slash on rockline

trying to break the 2010 casavista double digits in one month record. this shit is hillarious

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Friday, July 23, 2010

vintage gayle gold

IMO, the best Austin band of the last couple years that just broke up waaay before their time. Not that these folks arent still all around making music, but this was gonna be a great band. This is February 09 at the Salvage Vanguard. Never forget.



awethumfest 4, last show, Sxsw 09 I guess? I think RXR played this one, it was the only show we played together:


UNRELATED REGGAE SOUL COVER:

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vintage norm

not the first time ive been led down a youtube rabbit hole originating from a Bill Simmons column on espn, but here is some vintage norm macdonald, the (and i know this is going to be hard for some people to believe) favorite comic of my preteen years.

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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Escape from MPC2KXL Hell

Come on a journey with me as we take the Akai MPC to a level of nerdom you might not have thought possible...but it just might bail some poor sap out.

Here's the scenario:
I've got a late 90's model Akai, the MPC 2000XL.
The problem all began when I decided to take some stereo samples I had and convert them to mono.
I do this because I like to use my 8 output card, and when I'm playing live, I don't always care about stereo. By converting my stereo sample to mono I not only save space, but I can keep my 8-output routing scheme intact (BD on channel 1, SNR on channel 2, etc).
By default, 'converting' a stereo sample to mono internally on the MPC results in two files:'SAMPLE________-L' and 'SAMPLE________-R' (assuming the stereo sample is named 'SAMPLE').

The thing to notice here is that the length of the filename is set to the maximum the MPC can handle - 16 characters.
Seems straightforward enough...until you save your samples to a compact flash or SD card, and then back them up on your PC; you are about to kiss your nicely formed sample programs goodbye.

What happens when you start manipulating these files on the PC, is that the filesystem truncates all the filenames to FAT16 standards...which happens to be 8 characters + a 3 character extension (in this case, WAV or SND). Suddenly, the samples you just made with 16 character names are just lopped off at 8 chars. The PC freaks out, and to make matters worse, 2 of these files now appear to have the same name (both 'SAMPLE________-L' and 'SAMPLE________-R' get truncated to 'SAMPLE__', or something similar).
The next time you go to load your PGM or APS file, the MPC complains saying it cannot find the file 'SAMPLE________-L', or 'SAMPLE________-R'.

This can be a pretty devastating occurence depending on the program you are trying to load. In one particular case, I 'lost' about 40 samples (drums and chops), and there would be no way I could remember where each sample went if I wanted to recreate the program from scratch. I almost just gave up, and figured I would just send that track to the grave (something I really hated to do).

Then I started to get an idea. I knew the samples WERE there, just with the wrong names, all I had to do was recreate the files that the MPC claimed were missing.
I originally tried to do this on the PC, pretty much knowing it wouldn't work, and of course it didn't. For posterity though, what I originally did was make a copy of one of the 'corrupt', misnamed files, and rename it to what the MPC was expecting. Of course this failed because the FAT16 filesystem pretty much just went ahead truncated that file name as well.
The key here is to do all of this from within the MPC, before you connect to a computer and screw it all up again. Also, please read all directions BEFORE you start trying it, it's very important to do things in order and to NOT overwrite the files that might potentially bail your ass out! I had the tendency to want to save, but if you save your 'broken' program, it basically loses all memory of the lost samples. So be patient and work through this dilligently.

Here's the procedure:
1) Try to load your PGM or APS file as normal, it should complain about missing files.
2) Make a list of EVERY file that the MPC is missing. You need to just hit the 'SKIP' button instead of 'ALLSKP' so you can be sure to note each file that the MPC needs.

Once the butchered program is loaded (with the files missing), you get to work recreating the original sample names.
3) Go into the LOAD screen and, following the list you just made, load the sample that you think matches the first missing sample. For example, if the missing sample is 'SAMP1_________-L', you will probably want to load 'SAMP1___'. Do this for every sample in the list.
4) Time to start the renaming process. From the TRIM screen, find the first sample you are going to fix, ie. 'SAMP1___'. Hit the OPEN WINDOW key on the sample name, and rename this sample to the correct name, 'SAMP1_________-L'. Repeat this for each sample you loaded and want to fix.
5) Go into the SAVE screen. Starting with 'SAMP1_________-L', save this sample into the same folder as your busted programs. Do this for each sample.
6) Now, go back into the LOAD screen. Try again to load your busted program. If you did everything correctly, the program will find the samples you just saved, and will load them into the proper slots of your program. SWEET RELIEF! but it aint over yet.
7) At this point you have the option to save. However, the samples you just saved will still be corrupted once you load them to PC, so save if you want, but bear in mind that you are only covering your ass as long as you keep it in the MPC.
8) So let's fix these damn file names. Go into your PROGRAM screen, and from the ASSIGN window, just start hitting pads looking for any long sample names.
*Protip - any sample name that extends to under the letter 'P' in 'Program Assign' is too long.
9) When you find a sample name that is too long, hit the OPEN WINDOW key with the sample name selected and rename it something that is no more than 8 characters long. BE CAREFUL and name your samples uniquely...if any two samples ever share the same name, prepare to enter a world of pain that I don't dare touch on right now. Using a song identifier (ie. a shortened version of the track title) + an incrementing 2 digit number is pretty good, and hopefully less likely to cause conflict than something like 'BASSDRUM'. Do this for every sample you can find, in any program you are trying to fix.
10) Finally, you can start to save legit PGM or APS files. I'd recommend saving both a PGM file for each program, and also an APS file. I'd also recommend naming them something different so you know which file is good.

The MPC2KXL is an incredible machine. Yes it's old technology, and yes, sometimes you have to fight it, but it's good to work at what you love and to get down and dirty sometimes. My situation might be a little specific to my own way of working, but it's such a horrible feeling to lose work you love; I just share my experience in hopes of helping out somebody struggling with some of these same types of issues.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Lebron's greatest

A little disappointing my fellow bloggers would allow anything about pitchfork, even haterade, to stay at the top of the blog for longer than a few days. anyways, its the first thing i see when I open the internet and I'm tired of looking at it.

so lets relive some LeBron's greatest moments:
the first part...its actually kinda boring, but it happened!




and Jordan (scores 28 straight no misses):
skip to 1:45


bonus video: people is crazy

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Monday, July 12, 2010

M.I.A. Pitchfork review

In other news....man, I just saw this review.

"Right or wrong, the social contract is simple: If you bring the hits, we'll put up with your shit.

With /\/\/\Y/\, M.I.A. has broken that contract. And she could not have chosen a worse time to do it. The album comes not long after a New York Times Magazine cover story that portrayed her as a pretentious, truffle fries-eating phony spouting radical politics at odds with her extremely comfortable lifestyle. The piece was devastating to her credibility, and her childish response-- putting the author's cell number on Twitter-- only made matters worse."


What a hatchet job! I'm not even talking about the album, I have no idea what it sounds like, but this "cleverly worded" bit about the NYTs article, that is just straight up character assassination. Really brutal, you can't like to see that. A total lack of regard for presenting the facts of the story, and trying to continue the spread of this rumor about some goddamn elitist French Fries ("have you seen the price of arugula lately?" what if we had had 4 more years of a Republican president because of those words, like that could have been the Swift Boat moment of 2008).

Not that journalism and music journalism should ever be confused, but for those of you unaware, the NYT journalist ordered these French Fries and then in her article painted M.I.A. as this "truffle oil french fry eating" elitist hypocrite blah blah blah. I'm tired of this shit. For the follow up, Maya had the whole interview on tape and released it to defend herself and now pitchfork is probably taking somebodies $$$ under the table to write this shit.

Fuck off Pfork, you guys just were downgraded from being controversy creating opportunists to being on the wrong side of the war in my book.

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Spain can Suck It

Wow, you know, I didn't know who I was going to be rooting for ("well I'm torn: my lady is half Dutch, but I'm about to go to Spain so it would be cool if they won and everyone was on a post World Cup euphoria wave when I got there") but as the match wore on, I ended up the drunkest most vocal supporter of the Dutch in a big fancy party full of Germans rooting for the Spanish (besides the fact that the Dutch had just knocked them out, Germans dont like the Dutch. Why, I donno, they are just on the list of "oh we dont like them." Why we don't root for the Germans in the World Cup, now that I understand.)

So anyways, my Uncle got me in this "Telecom" world cup party (I think Telecom is the same as T-Mobile). Unlike America, over here it is acceptable to have a big party for rich people and still have all the waitresses be smokin hot girls, straight up. There must be companies that advertise "need your fancy party to have waitresses that are only hot girls? Hot Girls Catering, 555-1212..." I am one of maybe 2 guys in a T-Shirt at this whole thing, but the other guy is wearing a pair of $300 ripped jeans and on his arm a smokin babe that looks to be from Barbados or something. Still, at these parties, if you are in, you must belong (they check your name twice on the list...once to get in the door, and then they send you immediately to get your wristband where your name gets checked again).

These Telecom folk have the biggest HD screen I have seen in my life. There was a moment where I stopped to think about it and was like "holy shit, the only time I have ever seen a TV that big, it was a bunch of littler TVs squeezed together." Not this thing, it was the real deal, and just fucking huge.

So we are looking at free food (thank god, I should have eaten more) and an open bar, and it is the World Cup finals, so since Gary has to make the rounds and be social at this party for his job, I am doing the only reasonable thing for me to be doing and making good friends with the bartender.

Ok about the game....I wanted to like Spain, I really did. I saw a couple of their games and thought "wow, these guys are modern day matadors, that is awesome" but guess what? When push came to shove, they are a bunch of pretty boy floppers playing ball control. The Dutch I thought had much better strikes, gorgeous things. Spain (oh I should probably just say right now, I know jack shit about soccer) does some nice things that are easy to appreciate...they defend the corner well, and of course the passing, but I think in this game the better team lost.

For me it was like I had entered a parallel universe where the 2005 USC football team had won or something. All the hype, a bunch of fucking pretty boys who cant handle it when the other guys want to play some soccer (I will say, when that guy got kicked in the heart, that was brutal).

Tell me if I'm wrong here, but for me 2 images stick out: 1, the Dutch have broken free and are about to score and there is a Spanish guy behind him yelling "Noooooooooooo!!!" and he just straight up grabs him with his arms. "We cant lose, its not supposed to happen like this!!" Where was the foul goddamnit??

The other image is of this Spaniard obviously flopping towards the end (the Dutch were awarded a yellow card). They showed the replay like 4 times and it was an obvious flop. I am making loud noises like a retarded kid while this is going on, and no one around me seems to be saying to the contrary. Just fucking bullshit.

Post game, Gary has left (he was there for the food, then back to work) and he has instructed me to go to an U-bahn down the way a little bit. It is a ploy to get me to see the city, which I am down for. There is this one really weird place where you can stare at this Old Ornate church and then 90 degrees to your right there is the Soviet radio tower space needle thing at Alexander Platz. Its totally a crazy disconnect. There is a big space there, and being as though the weather is perfect, I lay down for a bit, my sight phasing from the booze, but actually quite comfortably. Horns are honking from these Spaniard fans, and I think about trying to hop in a convertible that drives by with babes and Spain flags. I think a night like this you are supposed to let it take you where it goes, at least that's how I was thinking at the time. When the convertible drives by, I switch into backup plan mode, the time honored tradition of slurring "hey do yall smoke weed?" at whoever looks like a reasonable candidate. I get a laugh the first time and then the next guy I try it on has this long wavy hair like the drummer in Graffiti Monsters / Fiasco (he looks just like him) and is wearing a shirt that says "reggae jam" on it. Success. He leads me to a park in front of that church where there are 4 babes and two other bros. It is one of the girls' 19th birthday (this guy Albi turns out to be 25, I ask him later). We played some game that was very much like Sorry...it might have been the same exact game, actually now that I think of it, but there were a couple extra rules. If you could knock someone off but you dont see the move, someone else can say it, and you get kicked back into your base. We played this for a long time and no one was getting even close to winning so eventually we stopped. Everyone is drinking (not me, I'm doing A-OK) and this guy pulls out a giant J. I say something like "that is a giant J" to which he laughs and it starts going around. At some point we are partying, but also waiting for the first morning train. Then we do some walking to Hackesher Market and get the 4 AM to take me home. We have exchanged numbers earlier, so I think there will be a further report from this Bros flat later on...maybe it will be the location of the first "La Grange" show.

But yea, fuck the Spanish soccer team.

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Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy Birfday America

Ricci Rucker - Signing Off

From the album "Scetchbook: An Introduction to Scratch Music"

An incredible album wherein every sound you hear is scratched from a turntable.
This track is played with a single tone and the turntable motor off. Trying to recreate this is intense. I have gotten close, but those high notes require you to spin the platter much faster than I've ever experienced.



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Thursday, July 1, 2010

Blackcoffee

Another sweet jam from Blackcoffee and accompanying high production value music video. Warning this video will make you want to buy a new wardrobe.



UNRELATED REGGAE BEATLES COVER BONUS:

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