This past weekend I went out of town with some good friends to go relax on the west side of the state. Other than a lot of lounging in the sun, swimming and eating we also watched the inspired-by-true-events movie 21.

I have to say, it was very entertaining.  You can definitely tell where they took some liberties with the actual details of what went down toward the end of the movie, but it was still pretty well done. The acting was good, the pacing was good, heck even the effects (what effects they had) were good.

There have been a lot of movies about “stickin’ it to the man” but this one came off as a bit different. Perhaps because it wasn’t completely formulaic (although it was still relatively predictable) or perhaps because the dialog in general was very well written and delivered. It was also a very stylish portrail of what could have been pretty much a documentary. You really got a feel for what it might have felt like to be a college kid with hundreds of thousands of dollars and an ego to match.

Overall it’s a very well done movie and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

My good buddy from school started a band not too long ago called Instance based in Eugene, Oregon. Well he gave me a heads up recently that their first single is available as a free download so I’m encouraging everyone to check it out. If you like bluesy rock than this will be right up your alley. Go download the track Different Day!

I’m finding that a lot of the stuff I want to talk about on here would be pretty painful to try and write out. No, not in the emotional sense, just time wise. I want to start doing some tutorials/examples/etc. of some of the sound design I do with Native Instruments Komplete 5 and it’ll just be a million times easier if I can record my screen and upload it to Vimeo or YouTube.

So, I’ll be tracking down a good screen recorder (maybe even a video camera too to show some of the other performance based stuff I do) and getting that together. I’m on vacation now so I’ll have a little time to start organizing this. Well at least until I go relax on the beach of Lake Michigan for the long weekend.

Every person has his or her own personal mystery. Something that follows them through life that they try to continually figure out, but somehow is just out of reach.

My mystery is why the hems of many of my t-shirts curl up after I dry them. No matter what I do it seems to constantly happen. Ironing seems to be the only cure. Nothing seems to be able to prevent it. I’ve tried different drying temps, drying times, fabric softener in the wash, no fabric softener in the wash, etc. Some t-shirts do seem immune however, given that you fold them soon enough.

One day I hope to solve my mystery, but I don’t count on it.

I’ve joined a dodgeball team at work. There’s no question in my mind that this is the best way possible to build additional team skills. My plan is to take this super seriously, and help take our team to the top and win the championship.

My buddy is letting me borrow the first season of Battlestar Galactica. It’s one of those shows I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time (like Lost, which I still need to do) but never quite got around to.

Now I’m getting caught up. So far I’m only through the first few discs but I can say I’m really enjoying it. It’s just what I need to be honest. With as busy as I’ve been the past few weeks a little relaxing downtime after work with a good sci-fi show suits me just fine.

Edit: I finished Season 1 last night and yeah, I am hooked. Great show!

Now that hockey is over with and I’ve fully absorbed the championship I can move on to other things. Namely the fact that my perception of time seems to be speeding up. Case in point, I can’t believe it was nearly a week ago that I wrote my last post about the Wings winning the cup. That said I’m going to keep this short so that it gets done.

It’ll also be short because I think what I have to say is fairly common sense, namely that the more you think about and have to do, the less time you have for other things. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it feels like it’s doing nothing but speed up lately. Gone are the days when it felt like Friday was an eternity away. Now it’s more like I start worrying about the following Monday on Thursday morning. That’s messed up.

Perhaps a lot of people don’t explicitly think about what all this business about time implies in the more general sense. In many ways I feel it points to just how little we really understand about time as it correlates to consciousness. Not only does the passive experience of time flowing by seem to change pace based on your state of mind, we also actively deal with many different scales of time at once. Or at least people who are any good at planning do.

Music seems to change the way I perceive time quite a bit. I am starting to think that our perception of time is more influenced by the amount and type of information we have to process than how busy we are. Consider the very statement “busy work.” It usually means some set of mundane and time consuming tasks that probably make the unlucky individual feel like time is effectively at a standstill. Just because you’re doing a lot of stuff doesn’t mean you’re really thinking all that much and that’s when time seems to move the quickest.

I guess this wasn’t that short, and I’m not really done so I’ll split it into two parts. More later!

After an extremely painful Game 5 loss and a close ending just now, I can very happily say that my beloved Detroit Red Wings have won the Stanley Cup yet again. I can’t wait for the parade.

Check out some of the songs from Nina Deli on her MySpace, especially the song Flow. I happened across it yesterday checking out some audio software (I’ll have to go into it later) and really dig it.

I have a lot to catch up on! The Wings are (despite last night’s tough loss) still leading in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Red Bull Air Race came to Detroit this past weekend and played to the biggest crowd it ever has and the Pistons managed to blow it against Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals.

But this all too brief post is going to try and give you a little taste of what DEMF was like this year. Some have accused it of straying from its roots and going too “mainstream.” While it’s true that some more mainstream artists performed this year to say it sold out would be kind of an exaggeration. The fact of the matter is they needed to make the festival sustainable into the future, and Movement 2008 proved that Paxahau can do that and do it well.

First of all, the event was well organized. The last couple years have definitely shown improvement and this time it really showed that they knew what was going on. Beyond all stuff that festival-goers would see you could tell they had their act together by virtue of the fact that they were attracting more sponsors who were eager to jump in and take on a big role.

Second, I think the lineup speaks for itself. Despite the “mainstream” influence there were plenty of people representing the original sound. Pulling down names like Moby and Girl Talk is icing on the cake I think, not a reformulation of the festival itself. Richie Hawtin’s set was probably one of my favorite that he’s done at DEMF in the last few years. Deadmau5 was exceptional, as were Kenneth Thomas, James Zabiela, Magda, Mark Farina, Kevin Saunderson, Josh Wink and so many others that I haven’t mentioned. Beyond that there were plenty of acts I didn’t even get to see.

Third, the crowd was great. I met people from around the area and all over Michigan but from at least twelve other states, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Australia, Brazil, Germany (lots of Germans actually), the UK and Russia. Seriously. It wasn’t like I was even going out of my way to try and find people from out of town, it’s just cemented itself as an international event.

All in all it was an amazing weekend. The weather was perfect, the sound was fantastic and plenty of good friends were around to enjoy it with. As in years past, I can’t wait till the next one.