Ok, this cover is just all kinds of awesome. I’m having flashbacks of Swing Out Sister or Level 42 meets Return to Forever and I’m listening to a Bieber song?
I can’t begin to tell you how much this video makes my day week month… well you get the idea. The following video is an animation of sheet music to Miles Davis’ “So What”, which is quite possibly my favorite song of all time.
I transcribed Davis’ solo in high school and to see it come to life like this is absolutely thrilling. Even if you can’t read music, the song just comes to life visually. I hope you enjoy it.
(via Kottke.org)
It’s been 24-hours and I’m still downloading files. 178 files have already download, which were mostly video files, but I still have 1632 left to go.
My external drive which was the home of my iTunes library crashed a few weeks ago and NO, I didn’t have it backed up. I need to get a Drobo, but the first order of business was to see if iTunes would allow me to retrieve any of my past purchases.
I sent an e-mail to tech support and after a few days they sent back a reply stating that they would make an exception and allow me to download my files on a one-time basis.
Michael, iTunes Store Customer Support will let you download (at no charge) all the titles you purchased on this account that are still available. This does not include any item that has been modified or removed from the store since you purchased it. Please note that you may download your purchases only once, so this is an exception.
So I’ve begun the process of re-downloading what is still available to me as you can see in the image below.
I’m extremely grateful that iTunes support made this exception and allowed me access to 1812 files, but it’s also a little disconcerting. There were an additional 637 that were modified in some way so that they are no longer available to me. What disturbs me is not the fact that there are 637 items that I lost, but that my total iTunes files equals 2449. In other words, I’ve spent over $2000 in the iTunes store.
Of course that’s not including the 900+ CDs I have, so I’m beginning to think that I might have a problem. 
The music is in the video below is brutally awful, but I can’t stop watching the woman doing sign language in the bottom right corner. Seriously. I can’t stop.
Maybe it’s her attitude, her facial expressions, her attempts to keep the beat, the Flashdance attire, or the delicious bouillabaisse of all these ingredients, but I can’t stop watching this video. She is absolutely a m a z i n g.
You’ve been warned.
And to live up to my reputation of providing too much information, “Donk” is a real style of electronic music. Yeah, I know. I thought the video was a joke too. There’s even a 30-minute documentary on VBS.tv all about it.
*** Spoiler Alert ***
Britain has rednecks too.
A friend of mine recently asked me my advice on a song he’d written. The song wasn’t great and I’ve definitely heard worse, but it just wasn’t right for the market he was after. The hard part was putting together my reply. Do I wuss out and give a vague “yeah man, cool” response, or do I sweat the details and provide a proper reply complete with detailed constructive criticism?
I tried to be helpful and constructive in my response, but I couldn’t help but recall a great piece by Josh Olson entitled, “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script” for the Village Voice. Josh is best known for writing the screenplay for A History of Violence and I suppose he get’s asked his opinion quite a bit. Josh’s default answer when asked if he would read someone’s script, is a very colorful “No.”
Josh’s reason for saying “No” upfront is that in his experience he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. If he does agree to read the script and offers criticism then the writer will think he’s a jerk, but if he says no upfront, he’ll still be thought of as a jerk. Might as well save the time and energy and just be a jerk from the start.
Well, I chose the latter. I provided a lot of feedback and detail and I suppose time will tell wether or not I made the right decision. I really like this person and respect his work, so I hope it turns out well.
