One of the places I plan on living in this coming year is Barcelona. I've heard amazing things about its street art and electronic music scene. It is very sad to see one of these disapearing before I even got to experience it (and the city strangely looks dirtier and more decrepit without the street art):
January: Finish live in Buenos Aires February: Return to Seattle, Snowboard, Go to Tahoe to Visit Blythe/Tom March: Visit parents in Mexico April: Live in Bogota/Periera (visit Nina) May: Return to Seattle, Have BDay, Rest June: Live in Barcelona, Sonar (June 14-16) July: Scott/Alison Wedding (July 21) August Burning Man (August 27-September 3rd) September: Decibel 2007 (Sept 13-16)
My new blog is up at http://altavoz.vox.com/. Livejournal and I are still friends but the ability to post large chunks of audio on a regular basis makes vox a clear winner for me.
Warning: my new blog is almost all audio posts of my production. You will be treated to lots of works in progress and half-finished shit.
Not much to post in the last few days so I have been pretty quiet. My spanish class has been winding to a close and I've been trying to start up self-study so I don't just wallow away the entire month I have without classes snowboarding and surfing the intraweb. I've been trying to use the trip to Mexico City as a motivation to study but it is a bit more difficult than the trip to Argentina as I now know I know enough spanish to survive and I will also be traveling with a bunch of gringos so I fear there will not be much spanish speaking.
Still there has been a bunch of musica españa that has pulled me a bit back in. In many cases I seem to have found exact spanish equivalents of some of my favorite bands in english. It is almost like they were kidnapped and were converted Patty Heart-style to the ways of spanish: SiSe - Sounds quite a bit like sade but with better beats and is, of course, partly in spanish Stereo Soda - These guys are fucking great. It really does feel like rediscovering Tears for Fears again but in spanish. I'm not quite as crazy about them yet as I am about Tears for Fears but they seem to be at least as prolific and much more consistant (I really mostly just love Tears for Fears "Songs from the big chair" album).
In addition to various spanish MP3's I picked up the Ritchie Hawtin's DE9:Transitions and Dabrye's Instrumtl. Both are great. Hawtin's new album takes a bit of time to get into as it is a layering of about 100 of my favorite techno tracks. Just as you brain starts to latch on to one it is already subtly shifting onto the next. The album has been growing on me and makes a great retrospective into the last few years in techno. There is also a additional DVD with 5:1 recordings and a MP3 of the longer mix (about 1.5 hours) so it is a pretty decent deal too.
current mood: Dreaming of snow current music: Soda Stereo - Live in Argentina
I had to work through Thanksgiving and Friday but I was rewarded by the snow gods with 8 new inches of powder at Steven's Pass. Went up with line32 and some coworkers on Saturday and then again on Sunday. Steven's has totally replaced Baker as my favorite place in the NW. On Saturday the 8 inches gave Steven's just enough coverage to start going off piste and flinging myself off of some interesting features. Did a few 5 foot drops and scoped out an amazing 20 foot one that I might later in the season. Scary as hell to look at for now though. On Sunday went to discover that, unlike Baker, the snow was still there and hadn't refrozen/molded into unridable crap. Had a few great powder runs under hogsback chair and at the end, against my better judgement, hiked up behind the closed 7th heaven chair. I was kinda worried hiking into the backcountry by myself but fortunatately another skiier was at the top pondering the run ahead and worrying about the same thing. We shared a smile and then dropped a good 1000 feet of pure knee-deep powder before we were back on the runs.
I don't know why but cruelty to children has seemed particularly funny recently. Between the most excellent Wonder Showzen to the unbelievable hilarious Aziz Ansari Shutterbug skits I just can't stop laughing. I really don't hate kids, it is just funny when people swear at them.
I feel like I am just jocking the slog now but I have to completely second their recommendation for Lady Sovereign. And I HATED Dizzee Rascal after everyone buying his cd when everyone and their brother called him the new god of british hiphop (I should know better when people recommend british hiphop period). Sovereign has renewed my faith in limys that rap though.
current mood: dapper current music: lady sovereign
This weekend was the perfect balance of vegging, riding and freaking. On friday I held a viewing of snowporn at my house and consumed lots of beer and oggled people hucking themselves off of snowy cliffs, mountains and kickers. The next morning line32 woke me up WAAAAY too early (how does she manage to get up so early and not have a burning urge to kill?) and we, along with Paul and Shannon, headed up to Steven's Pass to meet some coworkers. The snow wasn't great but it was sunny and nice just to get some riding in before thanksgiving. line32 took her first lesson and seemed to take fairly naturaly to the snow. She claimed to be going pretty fast down the mountain and I didn't believe her until I saw her hurl herself down the slope at a good 10-15 mph. She didn't seem too alarmed that she hadn't quite gotten the whole stopping or steering thing down quite yet. Eventually (and sometimes off the slope) she would crash down but she seemed to be having a good time. It wasn't until the next day when she became a ball of bruised flesh that she seemed to regret her exuberance any.
After we got back and napped, I headed down to Chop Suey to catch Funkstorung and Josh Wink. line32 was just beginning to feel the pain and remorse of snowboarding, so she stayed in. Funkstorung was good but fairly uninspiring. Decent, but fairly standard acid house. Josh Wink on the other hand rocked the place like a hurricane. He had a laptop, lots of efx and two cd mixers and he used them all to great effect. I've decided that I'm completely tired of seeing house dj's make smooth mixes of the same records. I might be getting old (in fact I know I am) but there has to be something more than the same 4 measure transitions that chicago dj's were doing 12 years ago. Wink's set had a few moments that were rough around the edges but the entire thing sounded alive and new in a way that a dj hasn't for me since seeing Ritchie Hawtin pulling his decks, efx and 909 setup. It was fun to watch him too as he was constantly working the decks and seemed to be having a great time, posing cheesily for pictures and smiling the entire time. Pissed off looking dj's anger me to no end. For god sakes, YOU ARE BEING PAID TO PLAY YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC FOR A CROWD OF PEOPLE WHO ARE EATING IT OUT OF YOUR FUCKING HAND. If it gets any better than that you are probably doing some illegal.
Sunday I slept, recovered and watched spanish movies (Burnt Money and Pataleones y Los Visitadoras). line32 seems to have accepted that I am unwilling to watch almost anything that doesn't involve either spanish speaking prostitues or is made by HBO.
current mood: Creamy current music: Josh Winks - Profound Sounds
Finally taking line32 up snowboarding this weekend. Thank god there is no new snow. I'm not quite ready to explain the depth of the phrase "there are no friends on a powder day" to her. I would honestly leave my own mother at her deathbed if the snow was good enough. It is a sickness that I am not ready to treat.
Lots of good stuff going on in the citay as well. Josh Wink and Funkstorung are playing at Chop Suey (FINALLY, something halfway decent at CS!). I hated Funkstorung the last time they came around to the Mantra lounge but everyone has assured me that they were just going through a difficult phase and have returned to their acid-loving ways. As for Josh Wink, well that is the real reason to go. I've heard that his sets are an awesome mixture of Hawtin style efx/drummachines but with more of an acid/tech-house bent rather than minimal techno. It pleases me to no end that Seattle continues to be a techno destination.
The rest of this weekend is going to be devoted to getting my splitboard ready and trying to research enough about alpental backcountry to have a first good trip into their backcountry without killing myself. Alpental apparently has some of the steepest and best backcountry in the NW but doesn't have a very good record of keeping people alive. They lose almost one person a year to slides and five years ago someone got lost for 5 days in their BC and managed to freeze off both of his legs. Might be a good trip to take the GPS on.
My friend Tom down in south america has joined the LJ community and I recommend that anyone wanting to read a funny blog filled with hate and spanish (in approximately that order) check out la escuela de las americas.
Probably the best thing to come out of travelling to Argentina was an intense desire to learn Spanish. I've tried to learn French off and on for the last 12 or so years with no real success or definatively fun moments. Argentina, on the other hand, was filled with moments of realization that understanding something in another language is not the same thing as understanding it translated. Not to mention, there were lots of getting drunk in order to butcher another countries language and really find out what they think of you (hint: Argentina doesn't like Bush). After having no previous knowledge of Spanish I've since jumped into 3rd sememester Spanish at the seattle language institute (highly recommended if you are serious about wanting to learn a language). Tonight I registered for the last class in first year Spanish.
It is somewhat mindblowing to think of how much we as American consume content and art, and yet we are completely unwilling to do so in any other language. I know that I and my friends are constantly watching movies, listening to music and reading the next stupid internet fad, all in english. If for no other reason, learning another language is worth it just to be able to be exposed to yet more strange media and culture.
Some truly great things in Spanish: Jorge Drexler - A great Uruguyan that Tom recommended to me and I subsequently completely ignored. Great mix of acoustic guitar, electonic production and chill singing. Luciano - Chilean compatriot of Ricardo Villalobos that I actually like a bit better. Todos Sobre Mi Madre - Great movie with Penelope Cruz (she has been in fucking everything, check out her spanish movie list) where a women loses her son and moves to Barcelona to hang out with her old transvestite prostitute friends and find herself. Very odd and very good.
I'm watching Fantastic Planet for the second time this week tonight. The movie is an amazing combination of animation, 70's funk and bizzare French sci-fi. I recommend it to anyone who loves the bizzare and likes the idea of having humans as pets.
I spent a good chunk of the rest of the weekend playing Shadow of the Colossus. Even though I was a huge fan of ICO, the game initially pissed me off with it's lack of save points and truly wacky controls. Once you climb on your first colossus and start stabbing your sword in while holding on to its short and curlies your hooked though. It is amazing to see how well they orchestra the monster-as-level concept and the use of scale is truly mindblowing in the game. If the colossi weren't as breathtaking as they are the game would be an utter failure but somehow they managed to pull it off. Now I just wish the PS2 was at my house instead of line32's.
Got a bunch of goals for the upcoming week. I want to investigate getting livejournal to export into Flash. If anyone has gotten this to work drop me a line. Quinn gets back in town so there will be required club going and doing shots of jack to welcome him back (starting in about an hour). And of course I will hunt down any snow there is to have in the mountains. Looks like freezing levels are going to rise but I might try a backcountry trip to Alpental if I can get my splitboard working this week.
Holy crap did the season sneak upon us quickly! I was still daydreaming of summer snowboarding in los andes when I checked the mt baker website and noticed that they had gotten a couple of feet. Within a few hours (and lots of productivity lost to franticly checking resort websites) news had surfaced that the mountains were getting dumped on and that: Blackcomb opens Saturday Baker Tuesday/Wednesday Crystal Friday (but we know they are full of lies, get your rock board)
Even Snoq got a bit of snow. Last year (which we will never speak of again) felt like finding out Santa was dead. This year feels a lot more like finding out Santa's corpse has been re-animated and is delivering presents with extra zombie-fueled zest. Go zombie santa go!
Hmm, I'm not sure that analogy worked. In any case I'm heading up to Blackcomb this weekend to sample the goods. I'm looking forward to a long-ass drive and lots of rock boarding but am still stoked out of my fucking head that there is riding this early.
current mood: Stiggity-Stoked! current music: The sound of one hand clapping
Booked my and casey's plane ticket yesterday down to Mexico City for xmas. Booking tickets really is just a random gamble at any given moment. I've watched plane ticket prices down there for the last few weeks slide between $500 and $800. Having given up all hope of getting a ticket cheaper that $600, I checked yesterday and found 2 round trip tickets for $320. Franticly I booked them as the internet at our work went up and down (we just moved into a new building and everything is a bit wonky). Moments later my boss went to book the same tickets and they had gone up over $140. I guess the Orbitz gods were smiling down upon us that day.
Sadly I'm missing Nortec Collective tonight because I am lame and I got too drunk last night. Tomorrow is the house party of Leslie though (which everyone should have received eleventy billion emails about) where everyone will see my fully constructed Bender (from Futurama) costume. If I meet another person who doesn't know who Bender is besides my parents, they are receiving an Old Fortran bottle to the side of the head.
Stuff to get done this weekend: -Finish final coat of paint on bender costume. -Pick up keg for Leslie's party. -Work out at least one day. -Attend the halloween parties at Leslie's and Jeremy's houses. -Get snow gear back to Scott. -Sober up on sunday and watch some scary (and preferably spanish) movies. -Work more on my Rampart clone. -Rot more of my brain with Telemundo and Univision. -Wander around CapHill as Bender and harrass people.
current mood: Filled With Paprika current music: Fussible - Random Live Set
At work we just got a mame box up and running with several thousand old roms. The entire thing is housed in an old arcade machine housing complete with trackball, joysticks and clicky old-school buttons. The thing can play any of the games of my youth with unlimited continues in a perfect fashion. There are times in my life where I would have traded at least two of my completely working limbs for this thing. It is that good.
Now days though it is merely a great way to pull game ideas out of my ass (and more cleanly, the past). No game idea is truly originally and there are so many game ideas that have languished and died but could be reborn easily with modern development technologies and internet distribution. I know the games that I used to love (rampart, samurai shodown, bust a move, puzzle fighter, etc.) but I know I'm missing a shitload. Reply to this post if there any gems out there in the rough.
Also, while I am fishing for advice, I finally decided to buy a projector but I have no clue what is currently up with the technology. Despite being a healthy geek, I've lived with my 32" tv and 24" lcd monitor in happiness and isolation too long. What are all the cool kids buying nowadays?
I put up the rest of my argentina photos, including the ones of Tierre Santa, the only religious theme park in the world. I need to find some way to upload the movie I have of the 200 foot animatronic jesus rising from the mountain.
Still hating flash but at least I'm starting to see some of its benefits. People are doing some incredible things with it. There really isn't another 2D animation/scripting package out there that I know of that comes close. Also, it is hard to beat a 92% adoption rate among browsers. Sounds like flash8 solves many of the problems of flash7 but adoption rates are still pretty low (it has been only one month though).
After giving up gaming for almost 3 years due to the time investment required in current titles and the lack of truly zany games, the Nintendo DS has been pulling me steadily back in. The unit came out sounding like a complete gimmick. Microphone, pen interface, 2 lcd screens, 802.11b, gyrometer inside; the specifications for the thing reads like a swiss army knife of bizzare electronics that have no place in a portable game system. One by one though they have proven that their little piece of hardware is not a gimmick and that it doesn't take a $3,000,000 budget to make an innovative game (the average budget for a DS game is around $300,000 I've heard!). First Kirby Canvas proved that a pen game could be really, really fun, innovative and, most importantly, well designed. Then, Advanced Wars: Dual Strike proved that a serious tactical game could work (even if it really is just rock, paper, scissors with bad dialog). Finally, Castlevania:Dawn of Sorrows (get it, Castlevania:DS) brought back classic gameplay on the system and showed that that second screen isn't just there so you can watch dancing Kirbys.
OK, enough blogging for me. Back to feeding the flash beast.
current mood: amused current music: Andrew Weatherall - Hypercity
My love affair with Flash has turned into outright hatred in just a few weeks. Sure, the IDE/Actionscript integration allows for some amazing things. Too bad it is slow, buggy and allows for some truly horrendous design practices. I'll spend some time this weekend to see if it really is as great for animation/prototyping as everyone says.
Speaking of hacks, here is a great article on how someone hacked MySpace to become the most popular member (1000000 friends) in a day. Not sure if it is true (this would have to be some truly clever javascript) but it makes for a good read.
current mood: annoyed current music: Ritchie Hawtin: DE9 Closer to the edit
I've pretty much giving up the hedonistic life of raverdom for good. This looks damn cool though:
Internal Combustion Seattle's bus tunnel may have closed, but the Cascadia underground lives on. Join us as we descend deep into the Earth for an evening of dance, art, noise, history, and experiments.
I've heard that this rave takes place every year out in a old abandoned train tunnel in washington. I still want to put my idea into practice of going with a large flood light and running down the tunnel with a fog horn to simulate the effect of an oncoming train on several hundred drug-addled ravers. Does it make me jaded to think this is a great idea?
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