Archive for January, 2009
January 31st, 2009 | No Comments »
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Summer In The City
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Manteca
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“Sanford & Son” Theme
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Chump Change
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Album: You’ve Got It Bad Girl (1973)
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To mark the one month anniversary of gBlog, I’ve got a new feature that I hope you will enjoy: LP Classics, a tribute to the best records in my collection. The rules: each selection must have a few 4- and 5-star classics, and it can’t be a compilation or live album.
I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more auspicious debut for this feature than the LP I selected: Quincy Jones’s You’ve Got It Bad Girl. Released in 1973, it’s rarely mentioned among Q’s triumphs, but I’ve played and enjoyed this record countless times. I found it at a San Francisco sidewalk sale for $2, a deal that still makes me smile some 15 years later.
As you can see from the tags I assigned to this post, Quincy showcases his eclectic tastes on this LP. A few tracks originate from movies or TV shows, others are creative interpretations of other artists’ songs, and the liner notes detail several legendary session players providing support throughout the album.
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Published in LP Classics, Music |
January 31st, 2009 | No Comments »
The iTunes rating system can be a huge help in organizing your iTunes library. I guess you can go the traditional route of rating your tracks from 1-5, but it’s tough to articulate the difference between, say, a 2-star track and a 3-star track. I also feel there’s pressure to rank all your songs when you’ve got a 5-star scale, and that takes a great deal of effort to maintain.
Here’s what makes the iTunes rating system an untapped resource: a track’s rating is one of the few attributes that can be edited directly in iTunes or on your iPod/iPhone, then synched seamlessly between both. This allows you to categorize songs at home or on the go.
What I like to do is use the 5-star system for purposes other than rating the relative quality of a track. Though my system is no less subjective, it’s become an essential tool to help keep my library organized and make my playlists better. Let me break it down for you star-by-star:
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Published in Music, Tech Tips, Technology |
January 27th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
This edition of Tasty & Simple features a hippie classic: granola. Forget the crap you get at the supermarket (or even the health food store, for that matter), making granola at home is cheap, fully customized to your tastes, and makes a great gift.
Full disclosure: this basic concepts of this recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s New York Times column, “The Minimalist”. Since the Tasty & Simple feature is all about straightforward recipes, I fully acknowledge the influence Bittman’s column has on my everyday cooking.
For my spin on Bittman’s granola recipe, I’ve upped the nuttage, tweaked the spices, and discovered a secret ingredient that really takes it to the next level: French coconut cubes. I don’t quite know how they do it, but the French have discovered a way to distill a coconut down to sweet, chewy perfection, without any additional ingredients. In granola, it melts beautifully and forms irresistible coconutty clusters. I’ve only been able to obtain these from NYC’s Fairway Market, so I guess this one may be out of reach for many… if anyone discovers them outside of NYC, please put a note in the comments.
I highly recommend Trader Joe’s for all the raw ingredients — excellent quality and prices. The bulk food section at the health food store is also fairly economical.
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Published in Food Culture & Recipes, Tasty & Simple |
January 27th, 2009 | No Comments »
In First Family, A Nation’s Many Faces
I didn’t quite realize the depth of diversity in the Obamas’ families… incredible!
Obama Will Get His Blackberry
Our federal government is finally contemplating 2002 technology.
Barack and Michelle Obama do WHAT together?
I’m guessing The Love Doctor and I have different definitions for that term. (Thanks, Jeff.)
Obama Ramen!
From Rameniac, a website entirely devoted to Japanese noodles.
The Frigid Fingers Were Live, but the Music Wasn’t
Say it ain’t so, Yo-Yo!
Published in QuickLinks |
January 20th, 2009 | No Comments »
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Smoke And Love
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The Seed (Rock N’ Roll)
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Blackman vs. Batman
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Album: The Headphone Masterpiece (Promo, 2002)
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Back in 2002, I had a standing DJ gig at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. It was probably the highlight of my short, professional DJ career. The hotel was hipster central, I could play whatever I wanted, and I met tons of beautiful people. I even got a hug from Ed Lover.
Every once in a while, some hustling musician would try to slip me a CD in the hopes I would play one of their songs. I am kind of a purist about vinyl, so even though the Hudson provided CD players along with turntables, I politely gave him or her a thanks but no thanks.
One memorable evening, some dude graciously gave me the LP you see above. He was cool and laid-back, suggesting I should listen to it at home, preferably with headphones. The record looked totally ghetto, with a partially hand-written label. The cover was a standard white cover sleeve with an ugly pink/aqua textured spoke pattern. (Click on the image above to see it in gruesome detail.)
But I liked the dude’s low-key style, and gave The Headphone Masterpiece a listen. What I think was intended as the single was eh, but there were a couple of tracks on the B-side that had woozy, appealing charisma and catchy melodies. The recording quality was lousy, but I think that was by design. Cody Chesnutt (though I’m amused by the spelling, I’m not buying into the alt punctuation… ChesnuTT?) wasn’t quite fully formed, but he was original.
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Published in Crate Diggin', Music |
