This coming February 9 is approximately my one-year anniversary as co-chair of BayCHI’s monthly program and so far I’m enjoying the responsibility a great deal, even with the occasional panic that sets in when each new cycle rolls around.
As an aficionado of both music and games, I’m really looking forward to the analogies and lessons these two will share. Elaine is one of the founders of Meebo and she and I have had some really interesting conversations about the history and philosophy and pragmatics of digital product design.
Jeff is something of a famous wit, dating from his days writing the back-page humor column for Computer Gaming World (later Games for Windows Magazine), his various podcast escapades, his Greenspeak blog and of course on on the twitters. He has recently transitioned to a new role at EA, as editor-in-chief (and podcaster) for the EA.com website, and he may still be licking his wounds from his “if you’re so smart” encounter with the challenging realities and tradeoffs of interface design on a deadline.
B’s brother Andy took this really nice picture of my sweetie and me. We spent Sunday down in Seaside (right next door to Monterey). Good food, great people, fantastic music (with a rotating cast of players), not too many speeches, birthday wishes to B’s sister Peg, anniversary memories of B’s mom, cold weather, no sunburn, fine beverages, did I mention the good food?
UPDATE: Andy’s photo above links to all of his photos from the party at Flickr. You can also see B’s photos from the same event there.
My first article at a new music blogzine called Stuck Between Stations went live today. It’s called Goodbye, Ruby Grapefruit. Joe Bob says check it out.
Been meaning to do some recording at Vortex Studios and last weekend I finally got the chance. Cecil played me his song, “Styrofoam,” and then recorded me singing it with his backing tracks in my ears to guide me.
So far, so good. then Cecil added harmony vocals, additional guitars and keyboards and drums ‘n’ stuff and just generally whipped it up into a beautiful little track. Suddenly my plaintive reedy voice is fronting the Cecil Vortex Experience, an experience I heartily recommend.
Go listen to Styrofoam now. It’s just over two minutes, just over two megs. What have you got to lose?
Overall it was a musical week for me, as I got a chance to sit in with the Gloria Monday’s farewell SF show at Ireland’s 32 on Tuesday night. I have footage of that as well, but it will stay firmly in the vault as a reminder that I need to rehearse my uke licks bigtime.
Adina Levin sent me a head’s up (discussed on her blog: BookBlog: Dianne Feinstein wants to ban mp3) about the resurrection of the PERFORM act (why am I not surprised Lieberman is a co-sponsor?):
Hi, all. Don’t know if you’ve seen this, but Senator Feinstein has just re-introduced the PERFORM act, a bill that makes it illegal to record music from the internet and bans the use of mp3 by online music services (!).
The EFF has information and a handy action alert. Please sign it, pass it on, and blog it.
I did it. It’s kind of funny sending Feinstein a letter asking her to oppose her own bill! But it also got sent automatically to Boxer too, who may be somewhat less likely to ignore it. I may mail it as well as I hear emails are often ignored. (EFF also faxes your letter for you.)
In the past I’d have blogged this at Edgewise so here’s an example of the sort of blog-consolidation I was talking about earlier.
This is the home page of Mediajunkie.com, the personal website of Christian Crumlish. We are in the midst of a re-design, please bear with us. Signed, the mgmt.
Overlap 09 (Near Future Laboratory), Julian Sanchez depicts some of our prototype pattern cards and a "why are you here" sketch I made on an index card
This coming February 9 is approximately my one-year anniversary as co-chair of BayCHI’s monthly program and so far I’m enjoying the responsibility a great deal, even with the occasional panic that sets in when each new cycle rolls around.
