808 Heartbreak
Kanye West’s new cd recently leaked (the one I ranted about ) so I checked it out and it isn’t as bad as what I though it would be, not saying its as great as his last one. Its a lot slower, but I think I may be able to get use to it. It really is a genre reversal…but we’ll see.
Threadless.com
so for some reason this didn’t publish last week, but I’ll publish it now anyways.
So I found a cool site on the web where users can submit their own t-shirt designs. Each submission is then scored by users and has the chance of being chosen and printed by Threadless.com. If its chosen you earn $2000 and if printed you earn $500 each time its reprinted.
I figure I’m going to try out for this becuase its a fun way to practice my design and photoshop skills. Maybe, I’ll get some money or, at least, get my designed critiqued by fellow designers. I’m excited.
asus eee pc
So I recently bought a new laptop. Its an Asus eee pc-a ten inch netbook. I really like this laptop because it is really small and portable. It is also very affordable too ($450). I figured I didn’t have a lot of money to spend and I didn’t want a big machine to carry around, so I thought this was the best option.
And after having it for a week I still do. The keyboard is small, but you can get use to eat very quickly. It has a 160gb drive, 3 usb ports, no cd drive, wireless g/b and 1gb ram. Its a low end computer, but all I really need it for is taking notes and surfing the web on campus.
I also decided to uninstall xp from it and load ubuntu. I love linux for its ability to be customized and the large amount of open source software you can download directly on the computer.
So if your looking for a cheap portable laptop, I highly suggest the asus eee pc.
Here’s some links
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=asus+eee+pc&x=0&y=0
Conservatives for Change
I’m not one to jump on a bandwagon. In fact I am so against band wagons that I tend to not jump on them even if I completely agree with everything that cramped wagon is about.
But, after much thought, I have decided to vote for Obama this year. He was not my first choice (I really fancied Ron Paul and respected Dennis Kucinich), but I feel that he still represents some of my views as opposed to the other candidates. I’m not going to get into the politics though
What partly pushed my decision in a certain directions was a video I found on youtube. I consider myself mostly libertarian in my views (conservative economy beliefs and liberal social beliefs, if I had to put it in black and white). I so when conservatives voters decide to vote for a liberal candidate I tend to be very interested. Like I said, I hate bandwagons and love when people go against their own long held beliefs. For something that juristic to happen, there needs to something worth inspecting.
Here’s link:
Change
Yes, I haven’t blogged in a while. Writing is something I enjoy so blogging should also hop onto my enjoyment train, but it really hasn’t. Is it because I’ve been busy? Maybe, but if I enjoyed it enough, i would probably make room for it.
I figure its because I don’t enjoy what I’m writing about. This is most likely true. So I should think of something I do enjoy writing about (thinking hard).
Last year I wrote for the Daily and while everyone else was writing about politics and social changes, I was writing about zombies and time portals. Not in a serious mood in anyway but rather trying to take a different angle on politics and social changes. One that isn’t so stale and boring. So that’s what I’m going to do. Be sarcastic, its what I’m good at.
More specifically, writing about certain cultural characters as if they were an interesting and rare breed of animals. We’ll see how that works in my next post.
And yes, I must have ADD.
Auto-Tuneism vs Beauty of the Grotesque
rap. The new rock. The music that corrupts the youth and may bring America to its white and red striped knees. (said by the 1950’s voice of propaganda).
I never really was a rap fan by trade. I knew it was there and I recognized it as a branch of music that was interesting but not exactly my ears drink of choice. But, that soon came to change with the aid of the genre unify band, Gorrilaz.
When I first heard Gorrilaz, I was excited about the successful infusion of rock and hip-hop they represented. They also touched on country, punk, techno, and other genre realms that I never dared to tread in. They paved a road for me that broke my musical boundaries and lead me into diverse land of music (aboard a pirate ship of course, but I don’t want to get into that).
But i really want to focus on my interest in rap and hip-hop, particularly one of my favorites, Kanye West. Now I never thought I would be fan of Kanye West because I hate band wagons. But I don’t deny unifying under the umbrella of music and also, this bandwagon had the best sort of music that I just couldn’t deny.
My friend was the first to open my eyes to Kanye West. He bought West’s new cd last year and I was initially attracted by the colorful cartoon scene on the album cover (the kid in me). I told him to pop in the cd so I could listen to it and understand all the hipe that surrounded it that year. And you know what, I came to the conclusion that that cd was just dandy. I then ripped that cd from my friend and continue to listen to it.
Even though that cd brought me hope in the realm of rap and hip-hop, I was recently hope pick pocketed by news of West’s new cd. I read that his new cd was not going to feature much rap, but rather more singing. I’m not one to go against musical exploration, but singing idea made me nervous, not because West decided to explore it, but because he decided to use a device called and auto-tune to correct his pitch and make his voice sound better.
This ticked me off a little. I thought West was an inspiration for creativity and individuality in the world of hip-hop, but he decided that it is ok to make his music unnatural and synthetic. I despise unnaturalness in music for the sake of the status quo.
How can a device decide what sounds good to the public? Apparently the device decides what is hear pleasing and what the public wants to hear based on what the majority believes sounds good. Where’s the creativity, individuality and boundary breaking idea in this. I would find a lot more respect with West if he used his natural voice and mixed an album with out fear of what the public would think. If you have a bad voice, but you still want to flaunt it, make it work. Show that with your talent you can still produce something great sounding without the restrictions of a “bad” voice.
This is called finding beauty of the grotesque. It is when someone finds something not pleasing, but still finds it beautiful or enjoyable for other reasons, possibly because it is unique and interesting. Its a step into breaking the bonds of conformity
For example, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins does not have the best voice in the world, but that didn’t stop millions from enjoying his music. He made it work. His music was an amazing balance between shoegazy dream pop and ear aching vocals. It mixed well and sounded great. Like teen angst in a sunny meadow or something. (other examples: the strokes and clap your hands and say yeah).
Maybe I’m overreacting and focusing too much on a little thing. But I know that little things like this can grow into bigger, irreversible things in time. What do you think? Am I over reacting or is West headed down the path of conformity for the sake of the masses.
Title pending…
It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to blog about, to nail down a focus that would be interesting, thought provoking, creative and fun (as I was told most blogs are). I couldn’t think of a particular focus that I could coat my blog in so I began to think about what I thought about on a daily basis. What constantly caught my attention. I came to conclusion that I must have some form of ADD because at any given time i could be focusing on number of irrelevant or seemingly nonsensical things, regardless of subject.
In this time period of my life, my mind’s eye is glued to the entertainment world: music, movies, books. So I could write music, book or movie reviews. But I don’t like rating those items by a black and white number disguised as “exciting” symbols: four thumbs, two stars, ten tomatoes (whatever) and I don’t know if my focus will be lit on these for too long. But right now, in this moment, I do enjoy discussing them and focusing on interesting points within these forms of entertainment.
So I inevitably and passively decided that I was just going to write about what interests me on a daily basis even if that takes me away from the entertainment realm. No boundry, no focus. Just dumping my thoughts onto this blog in a semi-organized mess.
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