Home Sweet Home
I, my Dad, my new car, and a couple of coffee mugs, all arrived back to LA safe and sound.
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September 14, 2008
September 14, 2008
Breakfast in Santa Nella
Having some pea soup for breakfast at "Pea Soup Andersen's" in Santa Nella. This restaurant has been a pioneer in the use of non-petroleum- based energy sources for marketing purposes --I don't think their iconic windmill generates power, but it does bring in customers.
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September 14, 2008
What a cell phone network looks like
Timing a shot is difficult with this iPhone camera. I like some of the resulting compositions.
We've been listening to many film scores, and I got it into my head that I'd like to pick up a copy of Bear McCreary's score for Battlestar Galactica. So I brought up the google maps app to find the nearest zip code, then brought up safari and checked the stock of all the nearest borders bookstores. No luck, the CD is out of stock out here. It's fun putting this phone through its paces though.
Sent from an iPhone
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September 14, 2008
Self portrait in car, somewhere in California
We're somewhere South of Patterson, CA. I'm still enjoying the novelty of posting photos from the road.
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September 13, 2008
September 13, 2008
Travels with Dad
I'm driving my new vehicle from Seattle down to Los Angeles. We're now about 2/3 of the way through Oregon and have stopped to get dinner at a Shari's restaurant. Shari's is one of those outposts of incredibly American cuisine; they not only serve hash browns, but they also offer "stuffed" hash browns. Apparently those contain not just potato but also sour cream, cheese, and a gift certificate good for a preliminary visit with the next town over's prized cardiologist.
Sent from my Dad's iPhone
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September 09, 2008
Freezepop @ The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles, 9/4/08
I went to the Freezepop show at The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles on 9/4/08. As you can see from the photo I shot with my Treo 650's wonderful camera, the show was awesome. Apparently Freezepop's current level of popularity was helped by the inclusion of a couple of their songs in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero video games, and lead singer Liz Enthusiasm expressed surprise when the crowd repeatedly asked for and was excited by a song not included in any video game. I've attached that song, "Duct Tape Your Heart", to this post on my posterous blog.
After the show, Liz autographed CDs purchased by fans. Because I've already bought all of their CDs, and have loaded the music onto my iPod, I asked her to sign the device with her sharpie, and she obliged. I didn't expect the autograph to remain permanently, but I'm impressed by how fast it disappeared. It lasted less than 3 days.
To play mp3s in your browser, you will need to have Javascript turned on and have Flash Player 9 or better installed.
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August 17, 2008
royalties killed the net radio star
I've become a little obsessed with the band Freezepop for the past week. It's one of the bands I've recently discovered using the internet radio application Pandora, which combines streaming internet radio with the music genome project in order to suggest and play tracks it thinks the user will like based on a minimum amount of information about the user's musical tastes. I used the Pandora Radio application on my iPod Touch, it's a nice, simple, and free killer-app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Since discovering Freezepop, I've bought 3 of their albums and plan to go see them when they perform in Los Angeles next month. If I were a rational thinker (an indistinguishable quality from naïvete when considering the music industry) I'd expect that the powers that be would notice the promotional power of streaming internet radio, and would want it to let it grow and develop.
But of course that is not the case, and the golden goose is on the chopping block. Pandora and many other internet radio stations will probably disappear soon because SoundExchange, the organization that represents performers and record companies, has successfully lobbied for high royalties for internet streaming music –higher royalties than are paid by traditional and satellite radio broadcasters. Here's a good Washington Post article on the problem. According to the article, "Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies. Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures."
Now that I've gotten that hopefully-premature mourners' kaddish for net radio out of the way, here's a Freezepop track. If I didn't know better I'd swear this song was evidence of a recent collaboration between The Human League and Berlin.
To play mp3s in your browser, you will need to have Javascript turned on and have Flash Player 9 or better installed.
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June 30, 2008
Test post from an iPod touch
I'll even leave my sig in place so it retains that just-emailed look. Yeah!-Zach Fine
Not sent from an iPhone or Blackberry
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