Posts Tagged ‘music’
April 11, 2010
Updated April 21, 2010.
The world probably doesn’t really need another iPad review, does it?
There’s a glut out of them out there.
And I’m not a tech reviewer. I’m a gadget nut, so feel free to discount my enthusiasm by the appropriate percentage. After all, I did pre-order this thing sight unseen so it could be delivered on Day One.
So this post will be impressionistic, just some notes on my first week with the device.
First: It’s fast. Snappy. It makes the iPhone and the iPod Touch seem slow. It makes a Macbook seem slow.
Second: The battery life is amazing. You don’t even think about the battery. I plug it it in every night, and have used it heavily many days. It has never dropped below 50 percent.
Remarkable for an Apple product: It doesn’t get hot — unlike my Macbook Air, or my iPhone, which can get uncomfortable to the touch and sluggish with heavy use. I have often thought that Steve Jobs was trying to brand me with his products. No more.
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Posted in iPhone Apps, Social Media | 5 Comments »
Tags: Amazon, Apple, Apple TV, Books, computers, iPad, iPad apps, iPhone Apps, iPhones, iPod Touch, iPods, iTunes, Kindle, Kindle for iPad, music, NYT, podcasts, Steve Jobs, technology, TiVo, Twitter
October 25, 2009
I haven’t had much time to find new coffees lately. It has been a rather busy few weeks, with a trip to Cleveland related to “After Voices,” my wife’s new poetry chapbook from Burning River, a local press. We’ve also had illness in her family, grim news in the journalism world, birthday gatherings and more happenings than I can count. On the Cleveland trip, we hit the highlights, with readings and a visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We also stopped in at the local indie coffee chain, Phoenix Coffee, which also roasts its own beans. I’m kicking myself for not picking some up on the way out of town. Luckily, I still had this (shrinking) bag of beans from Stumptown.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York | 4 Comments »
Tags: After Voices, Cleveland, Coffee!, espresso, Morgan Conservatory, music, Panama, Phoenix Coffee, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Stumptown, Visible Voice Books
September 9, 2009
More often than I care to recall, I have impulsively downloaded a fancy new iPhone application, only to have it languish on my phone. That was the inspiration for the first “list of iPhone apps I actually use” last year, after the iTunes store started selling third-party applications.
Since then, the number of new applications has grown rapidly. Now there’s a cottage industry of lists, blogs and podcasts devoted to reviewing applications. Here’s a recent Techcrunch list of the “best” apps, which notes the store had 300 new apps rolling out every day. Here’s a similar post at Gizmodo, which put the total number of apps at more than 74,000. Many of the lists that try to sort out the best applications seem to focus more on flash than substance.
In August, I finally renewed my AT&T contract and upgraded to the iPhone 3GS. It seemed like the right time to reconsider the programs I had loaded onto my phone. Did I actually use them?
Here’s my revised list:
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Posted in Blogging, iPhone Apps, Moving Images, New York, Social Media | 10 Comments »
Tags: 1Password, AIM, Amazon, AOL Radio, Bento, Books, computers, dictionaries, Facebook, games, Gizmodo, Google, iPhone Apps, iPhones, iPods, iTunes, Kindle, Last.FM, macs, Midomi, music, newspapers, NPR, NYC, NYT, O.E.D., Pandora, Posterous, radio, Readdle, remotes, Shakespeare, Shazam, SMS, software, Stanza, Techcrunch, technology, texting, Tweetie, Twitter, Twitterfon, UpNext, Urbanspoon, Wall Street Journal, webcams, WikiHow, Wikipanion, Wikipedia, Yelp
May 31, 2009
These days, I seem to be on a musical nostalgia tour. A couple of weeks ago, it was The Dead.
Then last night, my wife and I found ourselves in the crowd for They MIght Be Giants at Le Poisson Rouge, on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. The crowd of people in button-downed shirts and khaki was enthusiastic. But it did not have the same energy we recalled from the late 1990s, when the band could fill the Bowery Ballroom, and nerdy fans sat in circles in the line outside singing angst-ridden lyrics they knew by heart. That was long before the band transformed itself a Grammy-winning act for children known for TV and movie theme songs. Anyway, the last thing I did before leaving the apartment was to pull another shot of this coffee, from the Yerga Cheffe region of Ethiopia. It kept me bouncing.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Barack Obama, Café Grumpy, Cafe Vivaldi, Coffee!, espresso, Le Poisson Rouge, Michelle Obama, Mixel Pixel, music, They Might Be Giants, Verve Coffee Roasters, Wondo Harfusa, Wondo Worka
April 26, 2009
It was a busy week of catching up at work after vacation, then a busier weekend that included a children’s birthday party by the Hudson River, with volunteer activities to benefit the Children for Children Foundation.
Then last night it was off to Madison Square Garden for The Dead. It was a great show, musically. There were certainly some aging hippies in the crowd, but most of the audience had a middle-aged suburban feel to it. A lot of people who might have been dancing in the hallways and aisles 20 years ago seemed content to sit in their seats and suck on plastic bottles of Budweiser.
Toward the end of the night, I was thinking more about bedtime than the music never stopping, despite a couple of quick shots of this Intelligentsia espresso blend before the show. I’ve been drinking it all week.
Let’s resume the coffee quest.
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Posted in Blogging, Coffee! | 5 Comments »
Tags: Alphabet City Espresso, Black Cat Project, Coffee!, espresso, Intelligentsia, Madison Square Garden, music, musicians, Ninth Street Espresso, The Dead
December 27, 2008
I’m in Los Angeles with the family this week, visiting the in-laws. I booked the flight kind of late and decided to try Virgin America, which had been getting a lot of hype for its geeky amenities and Jetblue-style business model. The only way I could get three seats together on Virgin was to pay extra for the roomier bulkhead seats, the so-called Main Cabin Select, which came with “unlimited” food and media, a sort of discount business class. The flight was pleasant and as enjoyable as JetBlue, but the geek reality has not yet caught up with the hype.
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Posted in iPhone Apps, Social Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: air travel, cheese, Christmas, drinks, Facebook, first class, food, gum, Hancock, Harrison Ford, holidays, hooks, iPhones, iTunes, JetBlue, John Hodgman, Jonathan Coulton, MacBreak Weekly, music, podcasts, pokes, Stephen Colbert, student films, Tweets, Twitter, Uhh Yeah Dude, Virgin America, Wall-E, Will Smith, Witness
December 16, 2008
Name of iTunes Playlist: The Older Faves
Rules: Rating is greater than *** (3 stars). Last played is in the last 12 months. Last played is not in the last 6 months. Date added is in the last 24 months. Play count is greater than 5 times. Skip count is zero. [See all lists.]
Top 10 From the List
1. “Sirena” by Calexico on “Convict Pool” Playcount: 8.
2. “Summersong” by The Decemberists on “The Crane Wife.” Playcount: 8.
3. “Story of an Artist” performed by M. Ward on “The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered.” Playcount: 8.
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Posted in Smart Playlists | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Andrew Bird, Andrew Bujalski, Arcade Fire, Bishop Allen, Blogs, Calexico, City Room, Daniel Johnston, Decemberists, Eric Hutchinson, Feist, fires, Funny Ha Ha, Harvard, In Rainbows, iPhones, iPods, iTunes, journalism, M. Ward, music, Mutual Appreciation, Neon Bible, R.E.M., Raidohead, Rilo Kiley, ringtones, The Essex Green, YouTube
December 12, 2008
I’m mixing it up a little this week, adding some new podcasts from the iTunes Best of 2008 lists [iTunes Store Link], including a few with video under 10 minutes.
“Grammar Girl Video: Irony“ Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips are usually audio, but this six minutes of video is worth watching for its excellent explanation of the frequently misused words “irony” and “ironic,” using to good effect the infamous Sarah Palin turkey-pardon video. Here’s the gist: Irony is all about incongruity and always in the eye of the beholder. Palin and her critics both might have thought the event was ironic, but for different and legitimate reasons. Writing that something is “ironic” says more about you, the observer, than the events themselves, and it is open to misinterpretation. Watch, understand, then use these words properly, or not at all, especially if you are a journalist trying to be fair. Length: 6:29 minutes. Released: Dec. 5.
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Posted in Podcast Zeitgeist | Leave a Comment »
Tags: "All My Internet Friends", Amanda French, Attack of the Show, brocabulary, Buzz Out Loud, CNET, grammar, Grammar Girl, iPhones, iTunes, Jonathan Coulton, Jonathan Larroquette, MacBreak Weekly, music, Podcast Zeitgeist, podcasts, Scientific American, Seth Romatelli, This Week in Tech, Twitter, Uhh Yeah Dude, York Pa., You Look Nice Today
December 1, 2008
Name of iTunes Playlist: Forgotten Favorites
Rules: Rating is ***** (5 stars). Play count is greater than 5. Skip count is less than 4. Last played is not in the last 24 months. Date added is not in the last 24 months. [See all lists.]
Top 10 From the List
1. “Dreams” by TV on the Radio (“Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes”). Play Count: 22. Last played: Sept. 18, 2006.
2. “The Good Times Are Killing Me” by Modest Mouse (“Good News for People Who Love Bad News”). Play Count: 21. Last played: July 30, 2006.
3. “Keep on Breathing” by The Delgados (“Universal Audio”). Play Count: 20. Last Played: Aug. 27, 2006.
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Posted in Smart Playlists | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Belle & Sebastian, Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst, Modest Mouse, music, pulmonary embolism, Smart Playlists, The Coral, The Delgados, TV on the Radio, YouTube
November 24, 2008
Name of iTunes Playlist: Emerging Favorites
Rules: Rating is ***** (5 stars). Last played is in the last 2 months. Play count is in the range 3 to 5. Date added is in the last 12 months. Skip count is less than 4. [See all lists.]
Top 10 From the List
1. “Boy With a Coin” by Iron & Wine (“The Shepherd’s Dog,” 2007.) Play count: 6. Sample lyric: “A boy with a coin he found in the weeds, with bullets and pages of trade magazines.”
2. “Fake Empire,” by The National (“Boxer,” 2007.) Play count: 6. Lyric: “It’s hard to keep track of you falling through the sky, we’re half-awake in a fake empire.”
3. “Candy Jail,” by The Silver Jews (“Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea,” 2008). Play count: 5. Lyric: “Pain works on a sliding scale.”
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Posted in Smart Playlists | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Airborne Toxic Event, Calexico, Ella Fitzgerald, Islands, iTunes, music, Smart Playlists, The Cat Empire, The National, The Silver Jews, Verve Remixed, Willy Mason, YouTube
The world probably doesn’t really need another iPad review, does it? 
