Where Del Taco, and I-banking meet; drown in the coagulation of hotsauce and corporate finance juices. Although, we don't talk too much about any of the aforementioned!
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"Scooter Libby was found guilty of perjury, obstruction, and making false statements -- or as the White House calls it, a press conference." –Bill Maher
How can this guy get off? I am not one to join in the tar and feathering of our President, but I can't figure this move out at all. Has the situation degenerated so far that our President is going to ignore due process and pull a work-around for the consequences of lying to a jury? Yes. Yes, it is, and he did. Another milestone in a long trail of bad decisions. Not necessarily bad people, but bad decisions. What kind of statement is this showing? It shows that if people will not be held responsible for their actions it is likely that they will not make correct decisions. Obviously the President's approval or disapproval is more important than the kind of abstract social relations that politicians have with the general American public.
A big blow to 'justice', and ideals of moral and social responsibility.
It has really bothered me that his sentence was commuted, and I am still upset about this obvious abuse. I suppose it is just as annoying as the acquittal of former president Clinton, but I wish that people would take responsibility for their actions for a change.
It is a shame really....
Well let's now watch Flight of the Conchords. "They call me the hip hop anamous, cause my lyrics are bottomless . . . . "
Well it's been a while everyone. I have been less than diligent about updating my blog about personal stuff, seldom feel inclined to do that over the internet I suppose.
This weekend was a pretty mellow mild mannered weekend, and even though it was I am still exhausted!!! Already looking forward to next weekend at Vanguard! Since I skipped out on EDC this year (I can't handle another hippie love fest) I am gunna hit up Vanguard. Next weekend at Vanguard we have C. Lawrence, Rank 1 (Piet) and Blake Jarrell. Lawrence was supposed to play back in May but I guess he had some back problems or something??? Regardless he got scheduled for next weekend.
I have yet to see Rank and Blake so I am pretty stoked. Over the past year I have really liked most of the stuff that Jarrell has produced, it has grown on me more and more. His remixes of the popular 'Louder', 'Chasing Cars', and Nalick's 'Breathe' are pretty solid productions. Will be a pleasant experience to hear them on the Funktion 1 system, which is just totally diamonds and gravy goodness. It makes me very feliz inside, haha! Not sure if there is going to be a guestlist for this event, but $20 isn't gonna be so bad I think. I'll find out if there is going to be a guest list, so email me if you're interested.
As far as the Sunday Feed goes, it's a little sparse and dry for those who aren't good company for finance gar-bage.
Dealbook - My new favorite blog of the week. Full of GREAT info about all the happenings of the M&A, IPO, IBD, etc... I love the place. Especially love all the great details about
In Between - Everyone knows the love I have had for Mr. van Dyk over the years. His old stuff is so mind-blowingly genius, that I would do little justice puring out my undying obsessive love for the cd's here. I will only say this: That the cd's will put you into total musical submission.
With the approach of the new artist album release (August 19th), he has started touring around (as usual) promoting the new album. I will regrettably miss him at Vanguard on July 20th, because I will be out of town. I am just excited because I am so tired of the mix album thing that has been going on for the last 2-3 years. Every artist making a mix (didn't care for PofD 2 at all blegh), and then selling it. COME ON! Sit in the studio and use the obvious creative talent you wowed us all with in the early 2000's. I swear, I would kill (yes, KILL) to go back to 2001 Innercity party and listen to Paul's set again live. As soon as Autumn comes on, that thing will melt your face (in a good way) hah!
Okay, that is enough of that. I had some other links, but will update this later in the week. And post some live sets that have come in. Got a really good Sasha set, that has been stock in my mp3 player for the whole week.
Been a while since I have written anything, so I thought to pound out a few thoughts I have been thinking about over the past couple weeks. As usual this is not a very ad hoc post, and is more a discombobulated hodge podge of news and random thoughts. This week is admittedly less serious than others...
I spotted this not too long ago, and it is hilarious! Perhaps it is just me and my twisted sense of humor, perhaps you are just too serious (it's possible...), but this has to be one of the best wikipedia categories ever: HERE
End of an Era: The whole concept of internet taxes is receiving more and more attention as of late. With the imminent death of internet radio (because of unfair and thoughtless taxes), the next in line to be strangled by taxes seems to be the internet as a whole. All though this will definitely have less of a strangling choke-hold than the i-radio taxes, it will still be a detriment to many of the websites we know and love. Wyoming Senator Michael Enzi is pushing for a bill to require taxes on all online purchases.
The Washington Post put the total lost state revenues from untaxed Internet sales in the neighborhood of $16 billion. A very considerable amount. I wonder what the money lost could have been put to use for?
Outsource Your Life: well I have blogged about crowdsourcing, outsourcing, and the likes, but this has to be the best yet. This takes the Mechanical Turk (if you don't know what that is, check it out!) to a whole new level. Good read!
Kobayashi Loses: Takeru Kobayashi, famous for being a tank when it comes to competitive eating, lost to Joey Chestnut, from CA. Kobayashi is nutz, he always blew the competition away when it came to eating hot dogs. However, Joey apparently finished 59 & 1/2 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Mind blowing.
And now, for the Sunday Read. This weeks is just a few short articles, as I found myself with a little less free time on my hands this week.
Painting Music - No this is unfortunately not the release of "Painting the Silence" (good track though), instead it is a really interesting interactive flash program that allows you to visually paint your music. The visuals are nothing stunning (this isn't as much of a trip as MilkDrop), but it still provides a good 10min+ of entertainment combining different instruments on the canvas messing w/ delay times, etc... Have fun!
Einstein: His Life & Universe - An interesting article that sums up some intersting facts about Ein's life in a very general sort of way... I enjoyed reading it, being as I have yet to read the Wiki on him. This is good for those that don't have the strength to read a full biography. A great four page summary! "It is important to foster individuality," he said, "for only the individual can produce the new ideas." Ron Paul on CNN - Interesting youtube clip from CNN interviewing Ron Paul. I thought the dialogue was interesting, and am not supporting Ron as a presidential hopeful. My vote is still up in the air. I don't know who I want to win office... I just enjoy a person who says what he thinks without worrying about stepping on the toes of his party members.
The Office Aside from the Sunday read, I would just have to praise the season finale of The Office. However, before the praise: Now, I'm not one to become involved in stupid things like, fictional relationships on TV sitcoms but I just have to say that Karen > Pam, in an infinate number of ways. That being said, the last scene is priceless! "We're done." ..... "whaa?". Beautifully executed. Gah that other girl is so irritating = dumped = awesome. The math in this article is indeed revolutionary, no?
Music Jon O'Bir's May Promo Mix (right-click save as) As for upcoming events! Anyone going to go see Filo & Peri @ Circus on Saturday? Not sure I am gunna hit up them, but definitely going to be in LA-la land for Jon O'Bir next Saturday. Woohoo, I grabbed his may Promo mix, and love it! Congrats to him for getting his radio show on Florida's 93.5 Dance FM too, keep up the good work!
As for other music news, Smashing Pumpkins' new CD is due out in a bit (July 10th), and I found a nice stream of their track 'Tarantula" here. Enjoy! Played on KROQ, I'm not sold on it, but perhaps it will grow on me.
Up and Coming: Rants and Raves in Swedish, End of the Neo-con's, Having fun with AI (Alt.Inv, not Artf.Intl.) Vi ses!
The Sunday Read: occasionally I like to post links to a few though provoking interesting reads that have sparked my interest over the week. Hopefully you will find some merit to reading these although some are longer than others.
Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves - an interesting read one that I hadn't gotten around to (among the many!!! I Haven't even cracked open War & Peace yet... hehe). However, Leo Tolstoy wrote a great piece hear about alcohol and tobacco usage and his opinions concerning it. I feel that perhaps his reasoning behind all of it could span the depth of not only alcohol and tobacco, but also any narcotic substance.
I am not necessarily saying that Tolstoy's reasoning is correct here, but rather I think his observations are pretty spot on with mine. Although my interpetation is a bit different.
Convienent Skin Cancer Therapy - It will affect most of us (I believe the odds are like 1:4) at some point in our life. It makes me happy to know that there are people who are alieviating the pain that is usually required to treat most types of skin cancer.
What is Google? - Short read from a well-known French philosopher, has some interesting thoughts about what google is (yes, we all know it's a search engine...)
There were some other things I read, but none of them really seem relevant now, thus I'll leave the list short and sweet.
As usual I have to do a little music plug for the LA/OC-ites:
7/14/07 - Giant Village - Armin van Buuren in downtown LA, should be a good time, specially considering Armin will play an 8hr set. Very excited. BUY HERE
7/20/07- PVD @ Vanguard - I shan't pass up a great couple hours w/ Paul on the Funktion One system! BUY HERE
If you are reading this and you don't know what Coachella is, it is safe to assume that you have been living under a rock for quite some time. That being said, I can start my review... well I personally don't want to go into extreme detail for each of the people I saw, because there were just too many good bands to review. But I will give a little blurb for most of em'.
We can start with the camping situation. It was fairly organized, and wasn't too bad, our neighbors were pretty chills for the most part, but a few of them were morons, but nothing that I didn't expect. Showers were actually pretty nice, and I was surprised to get some hot water. Although it was so bloody hot that I honestly didn't want to use the hot water. I think for the majority of the weekend it was a 100+. I drank seriously 30 waters/gatorades in 3 days. The prices inside the festival for food and water was a rape, but I there was nothing to be done about it. The Hawaiian BBQ place kept giving loads of chicken to fuel me through the arduous long dancing nights.
The crowd was mostly younger people in their 20's, but for some of the bands there were some people who showed up who were like 15yrs old, and then there were some urban cougars on the prowl...
F R I D A Y
Arctic Monkeys: Really good show, the lead guy is very talented, but they need to work on their band-banter. It was pretty boring banter, that was basically "I'm Britt-Ish, blabla". Regardless it was a great show, and was nice considering they came on around sunset Friday evening.
Jesus & the Mary Chain: Wow, not impressed at all. It wasn't horrible from technical standpoint, but their lyrics were horrible. Stupidity spouted from the mic would be a simple and concise way to sum them up.
Interpol: Way good band! Their performance was awesome. Very impressed and was pleased!
Bjork: First impressions were this chick is Icelandic, and she's insane. It was very upbeat, and interesting. I gained a new respect for her, because before I have seen her I just thought she was straight-up weird. I classified her in the same group as aliens, magicians, carni-folk. However, my opinion is changed! I have a better appreciation for her weirdness and she actually is one of the most creative artists I've seen. I didn't stay the whole time for her stuff, because I wanted to see
DJ Shadow: Started off playing his older stuff--which I love--but then started playing stuff off the newer album. I had to bounce back to camp to hop in the shower, so I didn't get to catch all of his set unfortunately.
S A T U R D A Y
The Fratellis: Fun fun fun! Was really having a blast dancing to them, met some 日本人 and we spoke Japanese for a while. I was impressed that they came all that way for Coachella. Unfortunately none of the girls were interesting =( but it was still fun to chat for a bit! Regina Spektor: Got bored listening to her, plus she was on main stage, and it was incredibly hot, so I didn't have the stay power to listen to everything, and I bounced over to Mojave tent to see
Hot Chip: Superior. Hot Chip owned me pretty bad, I couldn't make it in the tent just because it was sooo hot inside, it was at least 10+ dgrs hotter because of all the dancing people going crazy. I have never been a big fan of the rock+EDM bands (like Infected Mushroom, not my thing); however, I really seemed to dig Hot Chip. I caught like 4-5 tracks and they were rocking and upbeat but nothing too intense like InfMshrm. MSTRKRFT: Caught the first half of their set, and holy wicked basslines everywhere. It was disorienting when I first went in... I was feeling a bit dizzy and I'm it was because of the heat+bass. They are an interesting group, but I wasn't able to stay for the whole set. Arcade Fire: What a fun band to watch. I love it when people demolish their own equipment... NOT! Man, at least you could toss it into the crowd to please some fanboy, and fulfill his life's dreams instead of smashing it on stage. Very fun to watch though I guess...
RHCP: Definately the performance of the night! When the back LCD came on, I was pretty starry-eyed, it certainly was very cool to look at. They are definitely a band where you can tell that they are veterans at the concert thing. Fly told some lame jokes, and band-banter was entertaining and engaging. The performance was awesome, lighting, sound, vocals, guitar solos galore, it was a stew of coagulated music juices, where sweet and sour, salty and spicy, combined to provide a most enjoyable musical experience! Hah! What a lame description!
Tiesto: Wasn't expecting to be blown away, but WHY do you have to play the two worst tracks on your album. Dance4Life sucks, nobody likes it, should have dropped some wicked remix of Driving to Heaven or something... bah. I was pleased that he closed the set with Adagio for Strings, that was cool, very reminiscent of Tiesto in concert. The lighting was sweet, but the visuals in the back were absurd! Since when did people jumping around in leotards become aesthetically 'cool' I must have missed the memo on this one.
S U N D A Y
Explosions In the Sky: Awesome! I love the instrumental rock, and they are so so SO talented!
Paul Van Dyk: KILLED IT! WOW! The beginning of the set had sooo much potential, but the energy kinda decreased a bit during the middle and then picked up at the end. 1.5hrs is really just too short to accomplish anything decent. There were a few new tracks of his new album that got played. "Stormy Skies" actually is a lot better live than I heard on the radio rip that was circulating around a bit ago. Everyone had a good time, met a really cute girl but her friend kept interrupting when I was talking to her... anyway, all in all VERY FUN!
Rage Against the Machine: Everyone started pushing to the front about 30min before Rage was supposed to start, and so it was getting really crowded (unfortunately there were not a lot of females =(, which I don't blame em' it was a ruff crowd), but we were packed like sardines and we were still by the main stage tech box (i.e. not too close, but not very far away from main stage). They come running on stage and this HUGE Rage flag drops in the background and that is when the Rage vortex started. I swear I pushed, carried, time-warped, whatever it was, 60ft closer than where I was in a matter of a few seconds. The gravity of the band, was sucking all the people closer and closer, and I was feelin' a bit uncomfortable, but I couldn't help buy smile. The show was great, people were going nutz, I had like 3 people dropped on my head because there was so many people crowdsurfing, and I was bouncing all over the place (although, I tried my best to steer clear of the mosh-pits, too old for that stuff).
Renegades of Funk (a personal favorite...):
Other Cool Stuff: The tesla coils were sweet! The fire machine, the wierd clown guys that cooled everyone off with the water mister guns, the girl that took the hook and sinker, the Japanese Kook fans LOL!, the guy who ripped his pants wresting the girl in line for gatorade (better leave the wrestling mask at home next time), and much more!
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