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tag → station11

  1. 04 January 2006

    2005 post mortem

    2226 days ago

    Year in review, I guess. I have a pretty normalized outlook on things, and 2005 was a good year like all the rest. I’ll be updating this post with more bits as they come to me.

    Events

    • I turned 18. Along with graduating high school, this is one of those big deals that really doesn’t ever end up that big.
    • I played lots of soccer. I captained my summer team, and we didn’t do half bad.
    • Graduated. I would say I was glad to be done, but I just went on to college to do the same shit another 4 years. Maybe I’ll congratulate myself after finishing that. One plus: I made around $600 dollars from the party that comes standard. I thought about donating it to a charity, but eventually it came down to it and I wanted a powerbook.
    • Joachim, our Norwegian exchange student, left after a year. We still keep in touch.
    • I ordered and got my powerbook, first computer I’ve ever actually owned. It’s still roaring, and I love it.
    • Camp. Danebod is good fun, I’ve gone ever since I was a kid, and don’t think there’s much that will stop me.
    • Started college, although not really. I’d already earned the credits to be a sophomore taking classes on the side throughout high school. I’m not sure I like it, nor that I’ll stay with it.
    • I moved out. It didn’t really change my pattern of living. I always got along fine with my family, I’m a pleasant and polite enough guy. I can’t say I like the dorm better then my sweet room at home. But I wouldn’t say it’s much worse either.
    • I bought into the vc4 from Textdrive. I already had a vc200 account, but had the money in the bank and nothing to spend it on, so I figured I’d double my stats.
    • Went on a great Backpacking trip along the superior hiking trail. I hadn’t been in awhile, and it was nice to really get away from things. Photos.

    Less concrete events

    • I really picked up rails and ruby. I’d subscribed to DHH’s blog after I started to use instiki (before rails came along), and the earliest rails hype got me. I downloaded the first version and didn’t really get it, I’d only started learning ruby. I played around with it a lot. It did a great job of giving me an easy way to really learn ruby. But I didn’t really do anything of consequence with either until this year. I have a few projects under my belt now, having started working with Slantwise Design and picked up a project for a professor at school. If your interested, my resume.
    • I really hit a wall politically. Christ, the state american government has fallen into. I used to call myself a democrat, but since Wellstone died I haven’t noticed anyone at all in congress doing much right, and don’t feel that there is a party I can put my support behind. The Democrats are all too sullen and beaten to stand up and fight for anything, and the republicans are as righteous and extreme as ever and are taking the country 180 degrees from where it ought to be going. With all these scandals and corruption I can only hope there comes some sort of redemption, I can’t imagine how America will look ten years from now if we stay bush’s course.
    • The thing that’s probably taken the most of my thinking this year is whether or not to continue on with college. I don’t feel like I’m getting all that much out of it, but decided I couldn’t write it off without trying it first. It would take real guile to drop out, and for the most part I’m still there because I haven’t quite put together the pieces and figured out something better to do. But I’m sure there’s something out there, and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for it.

    Music

    I really listened to lots of it this year. You can see my general listening trends on last.fm. Here are my favorites this year. They weren’t necessarily released in 2005 or anything, I’m nowhere near hip enough to keep up with all the music that’s out there. I’m not rating them in any order, as you’ll notice they’re listed alphabeticallly.

    • 89.3 The Current – Contemporary public radio, launched the beginning of this year. I’d deferred listening to the radio in favor of iTunes, but it pulled me back, and quick. Give them a listen.
    • Atmosphere – Local underground hip hop, although living in minneapolis it’s quite aboveground. Slug (the frontman) has come a long way since I first heard of him (4 years ago?), and his newest, You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having, seems to have made a splash.
    • Brother Ali – A pal of Slug, under the his Rhymesayers label. I call it hip hop to differentiate it from rap, because it’s really miles above some of the shit that gets put out under the name these days. He’s coming out with a new one soon, and let a track off it in a live performance for MPR (no permalink, but just search).
    • The Go! Team – Thunder Lightning Strike. Listen to any track off the album, and I dare you not to just get up and dance. You’ll at least feel the need. Their stuff is just so energetic. I can’t really make a label for it, it won’t be categorized. But for the great tag.
    • The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday. Great record with local roots. Plus look how the fuck cool they are: they have their own flickr group.
    • Heiruspecs – In the same vein as Atmosphere and Brother Ali, local minneapolis hip hop. Their 2004 release (A Tiger Dancing) didn’t quite get me, but I liked it enough to find Small Steps, a 2002 release that I just love.
    • Harvey Danger – Little by Little. Made a big deal this spring putting his new album on the internet free download, and I scoffed. It came up somewhere about a month later, and caught on slowly with me to the point that I’d have to say it was one of my absolute favorites.
    • Low – The Great Destroyer. Of 13 tracks, 9 stars. One of the best ratios in my library. It’s an understated sort of rock, I don’t really have much to say about it but for that it just feels great to listen to, whenever one of their songs comes up on the radio I just go nuts.
    • Seu Jorge – I’ve been meaning to get my hands on his Cru release, but haven’t. All I have on him are his great covers of David Bowie from The Life Aquatic soundtrack. The movie was good, but his being in it kicked ass.
    • Ted Leo/Pharmacists – Easily my favorite of the year, although I might be getting over him. He has the most starts of any artist in my iTunes library, and I liked his stuff enough to actually buy all his albums. Punk influenced guitar rock, nice lyrics, a bit of a political edge. Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead has been my favorite song for awhile now.
    • Worth mentioning – Belle and Sebastian, LCD Soundsystem, Metric, The Mountain Goats, New Pornographers, Of Montreal, Ryan Adams, RJD2, Sufjan Stevens

  2. 15 December 2005

    2246 days ago

    Kong! Kong! Kong! Kong!

    I’ve never seen a movie that so comprehensively crapped on any and all opposition, that so savagely went for your throat and held you by it until you begged for mercy. God knows how it’ll stand up to repeated viewings – it’s not a short film and there are patches where you could find fault – but for the moment I can only say that there’s never been a blockbuster like this, it’s going to clean up everywhere and I’d put money on it putting years on Speilberg. Unbeatable. Amazing. Must see. Wow. Tom Coates, on King Kong

    via Kjell Olsen2246 days ago

  3. 17 May 2005

    2458 days ago

    The New Yorker: The Critics: The Current Cinema

    What Lucas has devised, over six movies, is a terrible puritan dream: a morality tale in which both sides are bent on moral cleansing, and where their differences can be assuaged only by a triumphant circus of violence.

    The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith seems to be that it marks a distinc improvement on the last two episodes, “Th Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones. True, but only in the same way that dying fro natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

    Whether the director is aware of John Martin, the Victorian painter who specialized in the cataclysmic, I cannot say, but he has certainly inherited that grand perversity, mobilized it in every frame of the film, and thus produced what I take to be unique: an art of flawless and irredeemable vulgarity.

    via Kjell Olsen2458 days ago

  4. 30 April 2005

    2475 days ago

    Developers Wiki - hReview

    Just last night I thought how long it would take until something like this got thought up, while reading about how trackback is dead. An interesting looking MacroFormat MicroFormat to show relationships between a review the reviewed, I wonder what it would take to get a textpattern plugin for it. (and, for the ticker, I got it done).

    via Kjell Olsen2475 days ago

  5. 17 June 2004

    One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest

    Ken Kesey

    2792 days ago

    I liked this book a lot – it deals with the margins of society, the residents of an insane asylum, and how they fight the woman who is trying to mold them back into normal human beings. “The Combine,” the societies institution to keep everyone in line, is headed by this nurse, and the inmates are none in line with the combine.

  6. Also somewhat recently

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