On Friday night, I came home to find a champagne bottle and sushi waiting, followed by a ridiculously decadent dessert. Can’t complain about that. Then we hit up several of the 80+ yard sales on Capitol Hill on Saturday, with pal Abby. Among the loot scored: a working NES and games for a mere $30, C.S. Lewis’ sci-fi trilogy for $1, a 35mm SLR with a 55mm 1.8 lens for $20 total, a sweater and some jeans, and more.  Follow that up with a little relaxation, then a jaunt down to the ID to shop for NES games at Pink Godzilla, and then to Georgetown for a signing by one of my favorite cartoonists, Jason, at the Fantagraphics store. As if that wasn’t enough, we met up with pal Valarie for drinks at Linda’s that night, and heard about the Sounders 2-1 win over the Earthquakes, finally breaking their streak of recent draws.

Sunday wrapped up the weekend with a sale on socks ($1-2 a pair at the U-Village Gap; guys, get your sock needs fulfilled cheap!), lots of video game playing, watching the pilot episode of the new BSG spin-off series/prequel Caprica, and more video game playing. Add generous amounts of wine and tater tots (oh, and hip hop and “your mom” jokes) to this last activity.

Not a bad couple of days by any stretch of the imagination. About the only downside was missing Art Brut on Friday…but hopefully we’ll have a chance to see them again soon.

On a more positive note, I’m really enjoying the new Hot Chip album. Almost as much as the new Why? album. And I’m still wrapping my head around the new Autechre. Every time one of their albums comes out, it takes repeated listening over several weeks to really get inside it and understand what’s happening, musically and technically. By the time my copy of the limited edition version arrives, I should be ready to take on the bonus disc…just in time to go see them in April.

As for now though, I’m gonna watch some participatory democracy in action at the Central Library, then do some relaxing and try to forget the whole car ordeal. Music will probably help. So will red wine.

IMG_4956, originally uploaded by successless.

I think that my first foray into the realm of Consumer Credit has been fruitful indeed. Merry Xmas to me.

I’ve been an awful blogger lately, I know. Hang tough though, true believers, the rest of this year should be pretty interesting, with at least two trips and hopefully some musical goings-on. Soon enough…

Scene: Broadway, Capitol Hill, mid day. Two young men dressed in current youth fashions are walking along the street.

Youth 1: Man, I sure am hungry. My stomach is killing me! I really wish I could get my hands on some cheap, greasy grub right about now, brah.

Youth 2: Well, why don’t you just go eat a bag of dicks?

Youth 1: Yo brah, that was uncalled for! I don’t get all harsh on your broke ass when you need some munchies, do I?

Youth 2: No brah, I mean a bag of tasty burgers and fries from Dick’s Drive Thru!

…And this is why I will never work in advertising.

The new hours are somewhat prohibitive of my choice leisure activities, including showgoing. But I figure an afternoon nap will do wonders in that department. I already had some late nights this past weekend, and slipped back into work mode pretty easily.

In preparation for a lengthy flighty to Europe (my first), my aforementioned other and I have purchased matching pink Nintendo DS Lites. Possibly an ill-advised purchase, as I am now resigned to the fact that I will have no spending money until after I return from Paris, which means my planned record shopping trip (to celebrate gainful employment) will have to be indefinitely postponed. But it’s all worth it for the glory that is New Super Mario Bros., and the promise of wireless Mario Kart action in my near future is tantalizing as well. Even Animal Crossing: Wild World has drawn me into it’s cute little web of addiction.

In essentially unrelated news, there might be some weirdness when trying to visit this site or the Miniature Airlines website, or even the comics blog in the next week or so. The panicNow free server is going offline after 6 years of serving up pages for various artists, musicians, misfits, and ne’er-do-wells. Godspeed panicNow free server! You shall be missed as we migrate over to Dreamhost and actually have to bear the indignity of paying for webspace.

Blogging has been slow here, though I’ve been blogging up a storm over at Vox. There’s something very easy and inviting about it. I think I’m hooked. I have an invite if you’d like to try it out…e-mail me. My first name at this domain.

Still planning on souping this site up a bit….eventually. I started a design I liked, and have since fallen out of love with, although I learned a few things while doing it, so it wasn’t a total waste. But I have a new idea to try out, soonish. I need to get the Adobe suite re-installed on my PC soon, so I can do some of the scanning I’ll need to do to make that design happen. Oh, and I picked up O’Reilly’s Programming PHP at Half Price Books last night, so that gives me some more tools to play around with (assuming I can find some time to sit down and get my hands dirty).

Blah blah….more later, as usual.

I’m trying to move away from acquiring new CDs. The one that I bought last night was the new I Am Robot And Proud album, The Electricity In Your House Wants To Sing, which they didn’t have in stock on vinyl. C’est la vie. But regarding CDs: they have a lot of upsides. Convenience is probably the primary one. They’re smaller and more portable than records, and even though I use an iPod for almost any listening I do outside of my house, that is an attractive feature. Especially given that I’ve moved 5 times in the last 4 years. They’re also convenient in the sense that I can pop them into my CD drive, rip them, and have them available for listening, copying, adding to a portable device, burning, etc. without ever having to fuss with packaging or anything. They’re a completely ubiquitous format, available and playable basically everywhere, and despite rising prices and complaints of overcharging by labels, they’re still relatively affordable, especially at larger stores that can afford to order in large quantities and discount to their customers. They’re also capable of a high level of audio fidelity, and while debate rages among audiophiles over the relative quality differences between vinyl and CD, I’ve found that each format complements different musical and engineering styles. They’re incredibly practical, all things considered.

That said, I’m increasingly disenchanted with them, for reasons personal and philosophical.

Let’s start with the more tangible reasons. Larger labels are increasingly trying to shoehorn DRM schemes into the CD format, crippling the very convenience and flexibility that makes them appealing. Also, the current Loudness War being waged in the world of major label popular music (and which is currently bleeding over to the realm of smaller labels and niche genres) in the name of competitive volume comes at the expense of the sonic fidelity that CDs were originally engineered to offer. On both of these fronts, the format is being undermined by middlemen with no concern for either the customers or artists.

There’s an aesthetic difference between vinyl and CD as well. While I find blanket statements of either format’s superiority somewhat silly (they both have upsides and downsides, some of which are emphasized by different musical material), it’s tough to deny the physical and auditory appeal of well-pressed, well-mastered, and well-cared for vinyl records, even without investing a small fortune in top of the line audiophile gear. My cheap turntable coupled with Serene’s cheap stereo would give an audio purist a heart attack, but it works well enough to hear whatever subtle differences exist.

Philosophically, vinyl offers a more direct connection to the music. Even though most music recorded today goes through digital conversion processes before being released, the grooves on a record are physically analogous (hence the name “analog”) to the final waveform being reproduced. It’s nice to know that after the Oil Crash (yes, this is hyperbole), a needle and piece of paper are all that will be needed to listen to a record. Try listening to a CD without electricity!

Not a very convincing case for dropping CDs, I know, but most of my decision is more personal, and relates more to listening habits. I have hundreds of CDs, and hundreds more CDs worth of downloaded music (don’t sue me). I’ve found that the overabundance of music, and the increasing separation between music-as-experience and music-as-object tends to lead (at least in my personal habits) to a sense of disconnection. This is more a product of the availability of free music online than any issues related to CDs themselves, but bear with me here. Most of my music listening is being done now on my computer or my iPod, usually during some other activity. When I bought new CDs, they would be opened, liner notes perused, ripped, shelved, and rarely touched again. Music became a background, an endless cornucopia of sounds to be chosen as background to other tasks. There was so much to listen to that it was difficult to find time for repeat listens to anything that didn’t grab me straight off the bat. Considering that some of my favorite albums (OK Computer, The Milk Eyed Mender, Vespertine, among others) didn’t reveal their charms immediately, this is troubling. How much music have I bought and downloaded and filed away without giving a real chance? I also noticed that I was becoming bad at remembering song titles, track orders, lyrics. I’d find myself sitting down to make a mix CD and not really knowing what half the songs I wanted to use were about. I’d hear a track come up on shuffle and wonder what it was, because it was towards the end of an album I’d never finished listening to.

So part of the appeal of vinyl is a closer connection to the music. My turntable is in the front room, away from my computer desk, and even though I use laptops, wireless internet, and VNC in order to access anything on any computer in my network from anywhere in the house, removing myself from that setting helps to put the focus on the act of listening. Having to deal with the packaging again puts the focus back on relating to the music as an experience with a physical, tactile aspect, and encourages reading tracklists and liner notes and lyrics. It makes music less of a commodity and more of an experience. Listening becomes something to do, rather than something that happens in the background. Vinyl facilitates engaging with music in a way that CDs and MP3s don’t.

I’m not giving up on CDs completely. I’m not going to give up my iPod or digital music collection. I’m not going to stop downloading music (in fact, I’m going to make sure to download copies of whatever I buy on vinyl, when possible). I recognize, that there are plenty of upsides to the wide availability of digital music (most notably the ease of acquiring rare or out-of-print material and easier access to the history of recorded music, leading to the potential to wider exposure to music of different styles and eras). But for me, right now, the shift of mindset that comes with a shift of format feels more beneficial than convenience.

Wow, that was long and self-indulgent. Sorry.

I picked up a great stack of music at Amoeba a week or two ago, when I was down in SF meeting up with some of my compadres from EM411.com (pics by John). Some Jaga Jazzist, the Morr Music Slowdive tribute compilation, the new Doseone album, Owen’s last album, a Hood promo single, and the last Funkstorung (with brilliant multilayered packaging). All quite fun, especially the Doseone. I had a promo copy of the Funkstorung album (Disconnected) at some point, and the tracks were layered over with spoken commentary in order to discourage piracy, so it’s nice to have an unmarred copy now.

I’ve also been slowly collecting more music through, ahem, more illicit means. How have I not listened to the Jim Yoshii Pile-Up before?They’ve really got the classic emo formula down, in a way that’s not overwrought, but sort of refined and dramatic. I’d group them more with classic Karate than other emo bands though, really. And that’s a good thing.

Also managed to acquire the new Why? album, Elephant Eyelash (and I can see by my referrer logs that a lot of people are curious about this one as well). All I can say is, buy it. It’s good. Did you like Sanddollars? This is like that; quirky, off-kilter, accessible pop music with that good ol’ Anticon Flava. Seriously, album of the year contender.

On the topic of my own music: slowly plucking away at a few projects, including a new track for a compilation that will be out in Novemeber. Thent he 2 EP projects that are next in line, and a spot on a Sonic Youth tribute, with no fixed release date yet…

Also: the Apparel EP has been picked up for re-release by the lovely netlabel Kendra-Unique, and should be available on their site soon. Check out the other music there, from Samarah and the Great Mundane while you’re at it. Some fine folks to be associated with…

The Comics Blog is comig along nicely, but the whole reason I started it is so you wouldn’t have to read about that sort of thing here if you didn’t want to. So click thorugh if that’s your sort of thing.

More later, as I think of it.

I got a start on tricking it out last night, setting up Firefox to synch bookmarks from both computers, and installing all the little gadgets I’m used to (like system stats monitors). I’ve still got a lot of stuff I need to install to feel truly at home on this machine, but so far, it’s pretty sweet. I think this was a good investment.

More later….