The coldest winter I ever spent
Archive for the ‘General’ Category.
Last month Melissa sent me a banana bread. I have to say that it was completely terrific. She wrote,
i made three, gave one to a friend and kept one. the one i kept was super cinnamon and was so good, it was a borderline cinnamon bread.
yeah that recipe is a total keeper…the secret are the folgers fresh crystals!
There you have it!
These people are amazing. If you are near New York City on June 1st, you should go see the
m. You won’t be sorry!
Here’s the email I got from them tonight
“A delicate blend of untamed nature dialoguing with new technologies, Lulacruza is a cornerstone in the musical DNA of Latinamerica.”
– Revista 23, Argentina
We’ll be playing in NYC at the beginning of June with an amazing video artist; and our incredible friend Dygn will be opening for us. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see Lulacruza with live visuals in an intimate venue (please make reservations!) And forward this information to anyone in NYC who might be interested. Thanks!
Sunday June 1st, 8 pm
@ Monkey Town
Lulacruza
+ dygn
visuals by Lady Firefly58 N 3rd Street (between Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Reservations: 718-384-1369 or go to www.monkeytownhq.com
$8 (they also serve delicious food)*************
NEWS:::
Watch our new live mini-video/documentary: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RMRvefhAN_4
While in NYC, we will also be mixing our new album Soloina and getting ready for our South American tour in the Summer!We hope the Spring is bringing you all a lot of beauty, understanding and expansion.
light resounding))))ale & luis
“Seldom does a sound emerge so ripe and innovative. Lulacruza’s Luis Maurette and Alejandra Ortiz weave haunting female vocals with South American instruments and electronically manipulated field recordings.”
Visavis.com“The universe of this duo spins around four elements: wind, earth, fire and especially water, creating primitive and vibrant songs. Like a nymph from the Andes Mountains, Alejandra hypnotizes you with a voice and lyrics that pay homage to Pacha Mama, mother earth to the Incas. Luis is in charge of creating the décor; an electronically processed primitive forest.”
Proyectounder.org
Update 5-28-10: It’s now easier to avoid Paypal Fees. Look here to find out.
If you receive money at a “Personal” Paypal account, and the other person sends money from their Paypal balance (and not from a credit card or echeck) then Paypal doesn’t hit you for a 3% fee.
In a personal paypal account, you are restricted to withdrawing up to $500/month from the account.
If you have a “Premiere” account, you’ll get dinged with the 2.9% + $0.30 on every transaction, no matter what.
So you might tell people, “If you are paying from your Paypal balance, please send a Paypal to mefree@me.com. Else, just send it to me@me.com. If you don’t know what this means, just send the money to me@me.com”
Personal Paypal accounts can accept up to 5 credit or debit card payments annually. Credit cards are charged a transaction fee of 4.9% plus $0.30 on your Personal account. So you can accept payments from your friends (paying restaurant tabs and the like) with your personal account without incurring any of those annoying fees as long as your friend is paying you from their Paypal balance or an echeck. It can be a bother to maintain 2 Paypal accounts but you can end up saving over $150/year in Paypal fees!
My name is going to the moon. Well, it’ll go around the moon a whole lot, never to actually land, but that’s beside the point. NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is being launched later this year and I registered to have my name written on a (hopefully radiation-proof, non-volatile) memory chip.
Sure, it’s silly. Sure, some unnamed readers of my blog with autonomous anarchic zones landlocked inside Arlington, MA, USA think that NASA shouldn’t be sending anything anywhere. But hey, my name is going to the moon!
My cousin Christian and his baby sister!
It took a minute for Christian to warm up to being on a video chat. This was his first time. His mom told him to turn back around in the chair because all I could see was his butt… so I stood up and turned around. After we started talking about Webkinz and turning the camera sideways and such, we started having a fun time :-)
I bought my family webcams. We now chat on Skype with video chat often. It’s really terrific. Setting it up was easy. I’d just VNC into their computer and set it up for them… I’d tell my cousin, “Put in the CD that came with the webcam” [click click click]. “Ok, now plug the webcam in”. [wait a moment] “Can you see yourself on the screen?
“Yes!”
“Ok, now I’ll sign you up for Skype and put you in my address book. [click click click] And I’ll call you. [ring ring] Can you see me and hear me on the computer?”
“Yes! Oh this is terrific!”
1968: “2001: A Space Odyssey” video phone
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2008: My aunt in Florida chatting with my cousins in Nashville
Here’s more images from SWARM at Coachella.
This first set is from JDV
Lisa and Mills and a totally awesome robotic sphere
An orb cheering at the Kraftwerk show
The orb whisperer
A very pretty orb indeed!
I shot these next pix
The orbs were quite popular with the ladies
We’re like famous!
Most of the crew (taken by Dean Gray of the Desert Local News)
It was a really nice bus ride. Jimmy from Green Tortoise drove us down and back again. Highly recommended :-)
“Fly! Fly and be freesued!”
I’m going to have to verify the claims made in this article about the allegedly superlatively litigious Wright Brothers before I fully believe it and mope for a week.
I got back from Coachella Monday morning. The weekend was tremendous fun.
High-points:
Kraftwerk – I’ve heard bits of their music for years but their super-low-key on-stage performance was enthralling.
Prince – He’s an incredibly talented guitarist, an incredible singer, terrific on the piano, an incredible showman and choreographer, a fantastic songwriter, and incredibly expressive and sexy on the largest stage. He even transposes cover songs to be his own phenomenally. (and I’ve had a crush on Sheila E since like 1988)
Brett Dennen – If she is on my top 3, I obviously don’t belong at Coachella but a folk festival. She should headline one.
Walking around with an orb following me – Marcus drove the orb while I interacted with people interacting with the orb. This one lady kept asking how they worked and I strung her along until she demanded “I am an Electrical Engineer. Tell me how it knows where it’s going!” She was crushed when I told her it was remote controlled though I tried to console her with our plans of full autonomy. I also thoroughly enjoyed driving the orb while Marcus played with people.
Serge Tankian’s performance was fun if inaudibly loud, standing about 5 rows back with Marcus.
Fatboy Slim is such a presenter, I loved the first several minutes of the show. Then he turned the bass to 11 and I couldn’t bear staying in my spot 250 yards from the stage :-(
Low-points:
Roger Waters – The music sounded too similar to how it did 20 years ago, I’m not a fan of stagnancy or living on your laurels. And I have to admit Floyd reminds me of some difficult times in my life. His new song “Leaving Beirut” was…. it wasn’t a song but a 4 page high-school essay on what he did on his summer vacation. And he read it as such. Apparently, Pink Floyd’s members make better music together than apart.
Roger Waters at amateur night
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Here’s SWARM running around during Kraftwerk :-)
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Steven Nelson built some power tool drag racers for the upcoming competitions at Maker Faire May 3-4 and Ace International Speedway May 17-18.
:-)
