You’ve seen the challenge. It goes like this:
The rules: In no particular order, choose 10 albums, one per day, which made an impact (at some point in your life) on you. Post cover, no explanation, and nominate someone each day to do the challenge.
My friend Jason tagged me, and the result is this blog post.
I’m nominating you, since you’re reading this.
Post your list in the comments.
I first heard Trace Bundy on Pandora, and really enjoyed his music. Since then, Joan and I have seen Trace twice — in Hermosa Beach and again in Seoul, South Korea. Later this month, we’re seeing him again in Berkeley.
It may be difficult to imagine how an acoustic guitar concert could be so good, but this short 7-minute documentary gives you a sense.
Enjoy.
Scott Berkun shared this absurd, amazing, wonderful Japanese commercial that must be seen with the volume turned up. Enjoy.
On the weekend, I take a little time away from work to nourish my soul. Occasionally, I run across some good things that are worth sharing with you. This weekend, there were five good things that really stood out.
Number 1 – Radiohead released their new album The King of Limbs online one day early. I picked up the downloadable MP3 version for a sweet $9. Their best work since OK Computer.
Number 2 – Friday night after dinner, my girlfriend and I caught opening night of Unknown. Liam Neeson stars as Dr. Martin Harris, who awakens four days after a car accident in Berlin to discover that his wife suddenly doesn’t recognize him. It was pretty good up to a point. I don’t make it to the theater often, and this flick made for a fun night out.
Number 3 – Saturday we spent the afternoon at the 18th Annual Scottish Festival and Games at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Annie has a Scottish lineage, and was happy to bring me along. The clouds threatened to rain, but we lucked out and did it all. We saw the pipe and drum parade; ate Scottish meat pie and bangers; watched the Highland Games; saw border collies herding sheep; sampled a variety of single malt Scotch; and naturally perused the various vendor booths. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many kilts in one place. It’s a one weekend affair, but if you haven’t gone before, I highly recommend it (next year, of course).
Number 4 – Speaking of single malt scotch, we attended a wonderful tasting hosted by Ray Pearson. He bills himself as “The Whiskymeister”, and gave us an education on the various distillery regions of Scotland and the process that goes into creating single malt scotch. Of the four we tasted, my favorite was Bowmore, from the Islay region. It’s a smoky, peaty single malt similar to Laphroaig.
Number 5 – Finally, this morning I read about Adele’s new album, 21 in the paper and placed my preorder on iTunes. She’s a talented vocalist, and it’s hard to believe she’s only 21 years old. It’s due out on Tuesday, but I’m certain to enjoy it.
There you have it… five good things worth checking out.
For those of you who have President’s Day off tomorrow, think about me while I’m at work!
Rolling Stone magazine made Kaki King the first women on the Guitar Gods list. Kaki has a unique, percussive style that can’t be fully appreciated without seeing it. Fortunately for us, her entire 15 minute performance at TED is now available. It’s worth watching.
Now you’ve seen it. Have a nice Sunday.
Being the weekend, I’m sharing something a little more recreational in nature.
When I first bought my iPhone 3G (same day they came out), the lines were horrendous. But I did have plenty of time to learn about the new apps that were available. The Apple store employees were showing off their favorite apps, one of which was Midomi.
Midomi essentially let’s you find songs when you don’t know the name or even the artist. You can hold it to the radio and it will tell you the artist, the song title, the album and even provide links to YouTube videos and the ability to purchase the song on iTunes. But even more impressive, you can hum or sing a bit of the song and Midomi will find it for you… usually.
I didn’t really get the appeal of Midomi when the guy in the Apple store described it, so it wasn’t until a week ago that I downloaded it and gave it a try. The verdict? Midomi is FUN!
This week when I was driving to Dulles airport, I had the radio tuned to a classic rock station, and heard a song that I wanted to add to my personal library. I fired up Midomi,
Midomi records about 10-15 seconds of the song, sends it to their server and returns a list of matches. In my experience, grabbing songs from a radio was extremely accurate.
To purchase via iTunes, you must be connected via wifi. Since I was on the road, I just added a bookmark so I could return later and purchase the song.
Now for the real fun…
Midomi is useful, but the real fun begins when you try singing or humming a song. Lynn and I were cracking up as we tested the accuracy of Midomi (and our singing talent). Here’s how to play:
Get a few friends together. In round robin fashion, you challenge your friends to “match” a song from the band or artist of your choice. They choose the song, and sing or hum into Midomi. Who ever gets a match (or the highest match, if you’ve got a group) can decide the next challenge.
Let the laughter ensue.
As regular readers know, one of my busiest websites is BigBlueBall.com, a news and support site for instant messaging, social networks and other online collaboration tools. I registered BigBlueBall back in 1998 because I thought it was about as perfect a name as you could think up. It’s easy to say, to remember and spell. It’s adaptable to a wide range of topics. And it symbolizes our increasingly global community, collaboration and a “one world” view.
Four years ago (man, this blog has been around for a while!) I posted an in-depth explanation of how I came up with the BigBlueBall name and an anecdote about how one of my favorite musicians, Peter Gabriel, had (at the time) registered the .net and .org versions. I was curious to find out what his Real World record company would be doing with those domains, and now it’s clear. After more than 15 years in production, they’ve released (today!) Big Blue Ball
It’s fascinating to learn that Peter Gabriel had the same idea — Big Blue Ball symbolizing the global community and collaboration — with a similar inspiration; the astronaut’s view of Earth from space.
You can listen to some samples or get DRM-free MP3s below:
Enjoy!
