I’ve written about William Elliot Whitmore when he came to Vancouver. Sadly, I never made it to that show. I did, however, find this video of him doing this in-house/live studio performance on YouTube. Hard to imagine that the guy has opened for hardcore bands all across Europe, but it’s true. And the crowds loved him.
I don’t know what it is about his voice and the banjo, but it works for me.
The simple matter of fact is that some people get blogging and others don’t. When you start point the finger at generation gaps, that gets even more sticky.
This comes in reference to a series of posts that Arpit Jacob wrote about in this post.
Check this post here by the so called usability Guru Jakob Nielsen on his website (I refuse to call it a blog, if you can’t comment then its not a blog) were he is typically saying blogging sucks. Lately he’s either been out of touch or he is getting too old. My dad can’t understand what a blog is or why I spend so much time after coming back home from work even though I am tired. My mom once saw my Orkut profile and she asked me if it was my Website. I think Jakob Nielsen belongs to the same generation. Sure he was once a respected usability guru. But if he writes any more silly articles like the one above I might have to label him an old Grandpa. [clazh]
I can say first hand that some of this is true. It’s tough for some people to grasp on to new techniques or methods while holding on to the roots that have been instilled via education and experience. Even though one person can stand to gain so much with the world literally at their doorstep, there is hesitation to step out of what is known. You can only spend so much time learning new things as well, but here is where folks like us, in the trenches, come in to help out.
Blogging gets a bad rap because it being so equated to spilling our personal guts out onto the Internet. While some of that is true for some, it’s far from that for others. It’s a presentation of what you want out there, professional, personal, hobbies, sports related, cat related, etc. It’s whatever you want it to be.
Still, helping anyone see the light in all the tools that are out there is tough. I’m fortunate to have a family that understands some of this, but there are some days that you want to pull your hair out when it comes to others, especially when it’s a fresh college graduate who equates blogging to email. Eh… What can you do?
Living for a number of years in Iowa City[wiki], it’s news like this that I am happy to share.
Prairie Lights Books, Kurt Vonnegut and Sugar Bottom Recreation Area have long been household names for Iowa City residents.
Now, as Outside Magazine’s top town in the Midwest, Iowa City’s treasures will be known by readers from New York to Seattle. […]
The magazine described Iowa City and the other towns as “smart, progressive burgs with gorgeous wilderness playgrounds — and, yes, realistic housing and job markets.”
Apart from mentioning James Alan McPherson and The Englert Theatre, the magazine highlights the statewide push for alternative fuels. The magazine also said unique recreational opportunities included Sugar Bottom’s bike trails, Lake Macbride and the Iowa River.
If that’s not enough of an endorsement, Outside’s editor Christopher Keyes gives his own shout-out to Iowa City in a “Between the lines” segment: “… move to Iowa City. Some of the happiest people in the world live in Iowa City.” [iowacitypresscitizen]
Out of the entire state, Iowa City is always a place that I would consider at the top of my list to go back and live. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Vancouver lifestyle. I often find myself feeling nostalgic by memories triggered by somewhere around the lower mainland. Of course, it takes a little bit more than a five to ten minute drive away from downtown to reach wide open spaces in Vancouver, but there are elements here that consistently remind me a little bit of Iowa City.
I often wonder what it will be like when I get back there next and how much it will have changed. A tornado struck the heart of downtown the summer after I left, so I expect that amount of change. The next will come with changed businesses and buildings, but the demographic seems to constantly be shifting in a very distributed way. Such is the way of a university town, and the rest of the state can be a vast departure from this.
Even that is reshaping as those who flee to the coasts are coming back home. There is something to be said about midwest hospitality. Of course, you have to be able to stand the wickedly hot summers and sometimes brutal winters, and it’s something you never get used to as much as come to expect.
Going through one of my rediscovery phases, and these guys don’t have a video for either of these songs, of which I really dig. This live performance from Local H in 2002 is the best I can do, but it does the trick.
Caution: slightly strong language.
It may seem that I was completely bashing the iPhone in my last post, but I wasn’t. Breaking things is cool, but the iPhone is still a pretty remarkable gadget in my book. Still, I would prefer to wait until a 2nd generation comes out, not to mention to wait out the potential problems that could arise. They don’t say “bleeding edge” without reason.
The iPhone does make me wonder about the effect this product can have on podcasting. It’s true that there are cellphones out there than can download podcasts and play them directly, but the interface is lacking in one way or another. The only reason I say that is because if it were so easy, and it didn’t take a geek to master the method, then we’d have a lot more people listening to podcasts as is.
The cost of data plans aside, WiFi enabled cellphones is what purely sparks my interest in the iPhone. It’s a feature, besides Bluetooth, that I will look very hard at when it comes to purchasing my next cellphone, granted that the bank account can handle it.
Talking to Tod Maffin about podcasts at Northern Voice, he was surprised to find out that I listened to the hourly news updates from NPR and CNN. It struck him odd that anyone would subscribe to such things, mainly due to their timeliness, but I love them while running in the morning to get a basic low down of what’s going on in the world.
Imagine taking that concept and applying that to a situation where you are standing in line at your favorite coffee shop that has free WiFi. While waiting for people ahead of you to order their drinks with ridiculously long names, you’re snagging the latest news podcast. Better yet, you’re a hockey fan and notice that The Crazy Canucks published an episode last night and want to snag that for your commute home(had to get a plug in there). Download as you wait, get your coffee order, burn your tongue while taking the first sip, but are happy that you have something to listen to get your mind off the pain.
This is what excites me about the iPhone. Being such a prominent product in the cellphone market, I would like to see it revolutionize the whole spectrum in the realm of getting more phones with WiFi built in, not to mention bringing the price down. User interface will be another issue, but keep it simple and easy for developers to make simple and easy applications for people to easily subscribe and listen to podcasts.
Oddly enough, I was actually thinking about this morning while I was running a long route of near 10k. Talking with Corinna about it, we couldn’t come up with a good understanding of what “runner’s high” is exactly.
I get the concept. It implies pretty much what it means, but I ventured to good ol’ Wikipedia to see what I could dig up. This is actually apart of the article for endorphin, the naturally occurring chemical in your body that is responsible for getting you “high”.
Another widely publicized effect of endorphin production is the so-called “runner’s high”, which is said to occur when strenuous exercise takes a person over a threshold that activates endorphin production. Endorphins are released during long, continuous workouts, when the level of intensity is between moderate and high, and breathing is difficult. This also corresponds with the time that muscles use up their stored glycogen and begin functioning with only oxygen. Workouts that are most likely to produce endorphins include running, swimming, cross-country skiing, long distance rowing, bicycling, weight lifting, aerobics, or playing a sport such as basketball, football(soccer), or American football. [wiki]
Ok, being the good neuroscience student that I was in college, I get what it is now. What I don’t know is if I’ve ever had it or what it’s like when you obtain this state of foot pounding zen.
The only thing I can think of coming close to this is not feeling the soreness in my legs as I start out compared to being twenty minutes into a route. To me, that’s just a sign of muscles loosening and warming up. Been doing a bit of swimming in the last few days, and I try to do some lunges and squats in between running days for a bit of resistance training. Even after running, I stretch out to prevent stiffness.
Runner’s high is said to make you not feel pain because, chemically, that’s what endorphins are designed to do. I’m just a little lost as to if I should be feeling happy, running faster, or having some sort of vision of colors, a la Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey[imdb]. I just don’t know what it actually feels like.
I love the concept and wouldn’t mind owning one. However, I got really sick of the hype leading up to the iPhone release, am sick of hearing from those who got one, and am tired of hearing about all the things you can or will soon be able to get for your iPhone. Just not one of those rush-out-gotta-have-it types, even though I love cool, little gadgets from Apple.
I found this highly entertaining.
I’m an early riser, for the most part, and there is something to be said about running in the mornings. This picture that I’ve had sitting on my desktop for a while, and rediscovered today, is a reminder of that.
Thanks, KatKam.
I was contacted the other day about ShowClix. Basically, it’s a one stop shop for finding shows in your area, or at least that is the intention. I’ve often thought about the concept and how hard it would be to possibly list every show that you possibly could in a city, especially in Vancouver. The truth is that you can’t, but after registering on their site, there are a few shows that caught my attention that I hadn’t known about. Obviously, this means the site is doing the job it’s intending to do.
I still feel like the interface is a bit wet behind the ears, but you are able to search with a little ease. However, they don’t stop at listing shows. If you are putting on a show, you can sell tickets through their site. I don’t know the details involved, but apparently it’s free. Purchasers are basically put on a guest list that they have bought spots on. That’s a neat concept, and that puts you in control of the door to confirm people’s identity as they enter the venue. It’s your own, little Ticketmaster.
Everyone is free to add shows as well, and this will be helpful in creating an all encompassing list of shows to see, no matter how big or small. Once again, a daunting task, but if you can bust down the social barriers that bring the mainstream and the underground together, then I’m all for it. At least, if I am understanding this right, you can list a show for your garage band in your uncle’s basement right next to the dudes playing a stadium show on the same night. And dude, I’d totally love to hang out with you on your uncle’s basement rather than get back row seats at GM Place.
It’s a unique take on mashing up Web 2.0 with live music, concert venues, and social networking. There are even ways to list the shows you plan on checking out on your blog, opening up a way to see what your fellow blogger friends who are also registered on the site will be checking out. Then you can chastise them for their musical tastes even more.
True that the listings in Vancouver are a little weak, but they have launched in Canada as of a week or so ago. Checking around other cities, there is quite a bit. Even better, they offer RSS feeds so you can subscribe and keep up to date on new concert listings as they are added for you particular city.
Check out ShowClix for yourself if you are the concert going type. I know that I never get to see enough.
A lot of the people that I have been talking to about the new Transformers[imdb] movie have often been very excited about it, but many of them follow up with saying that they were never a fan of the original cartoon series. You know, “back in the day”?
I’m starting to wonder a couple of things. Is it too nerdy or geeky to admit that you watched this as a kid? On the other hand, was I just paying attention at the right age to let it take affect? Somewhere in my parent’s house, I still have a variety of Autobots[wiki] and Decepticons[wiki], some with more missing parts and pieces than others. I’m not afraid of saying that I loved the series growing up.
Ahead of seeing a killer futbol match this past Saturday, Rebecca and I caught the flick with Duane, John, and Travis downtown in a surprisingly half-full theatre. That only strikes me based on the $67.6 million that it took in over the weekend, and I’m ok with helping support that.
Bottom line, good movie. I was highly entertained, and that is always what I asked for in any movie that I watch.
What you want to know is if it does justice to what I remember as a kid, right? Well, it doesn’t, and I didn’t expect it to. There certainly is some homage to my oh so found memories of waking up very early on Saturday mornings to patiently wait through Jem[wiki] in order to hear that sweet theme song come on(this is prior to cable, and there wasn’t anything else to watch on the other three channels). I was once scolded in kindergarten for humming the tune far too loud for my teacher’s liking. If you think that’s bad, I had a fellow classmate in second grade who thought he really was a Transformer. When asked to transform, he always gave the excuse that there wasn’t enough room for him to do it.
Still the effects are outstanding. When you see Optimus Prime[wiki] for the first time, you can’t help but get a slight smile on your face. Then his voice kicks in, and I was instantly transported to those pre-sunrise hours of my childhood. Strange how Peter Cullen[wiki] can do that nearly twenty years later.
I’m still upset that Bumblebee[wiki] isn’t a Volkswagen Beetle, but there is subtle homage to his original identity when he first makes an appearance. Jazz[wiki] was pretty spot on with his character, and there is a lot to the robots’ characters that reflect back to the cartoon series to keep things old school while getting an updated, Hollywood remake done to it.
It’s true that there are some plot line issues, and some details kinda skip along like a rock across water. Welcome to the world of summer blockbusters, and this is exactly what I expected going in. I wouldn’t say that my hopes were low, but there was a lot of satisfaction by what I experienced. I say that by taking it for what the movie was, not over thinking about the series I grew up with.
