adrian is rad

Barely barely into August, here’s July’s mixtape.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007july playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock and some oldies, including a lot of new finds (of new and old bands), CDs I’ve had forever and new purchases. Bands include Or, the Whale, Bishop Allen, John Vanderslice, Dr. Dog, Carissa’s Wierd and more.

Adrian’s July 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link with zip file)
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it. I switched from zupload to rapidshare because of reader feedback from last month.)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

Comments have been broken for the last week and I just thought people didn’t care to comment on what I wrote. They’re fixed now so discuss away! (Spam Karma, my comment spam filter had hiccuped on transfering the blog from server to server. This was very useful in fixing it.)

Any comments you made in the last week appear to have disappeared into the ether. Feel free to re-comment.

I sort of thought that maybe I just needed to hide away in my room for the evening, that seeing friends wouldn’t help. But it did. Thanks, guys.

But it’s been too many. I’m only twenty-six after all.

It was coming down to the last days of that 7-11 Kwik-E-Mart promotion I’d talked about and I was down in Mountain View anyway, so I decided to make a run over.

It was pretty cool.

I got a pink donut:

(I could have gotten about 400:)

and a squishee.

I’m a bit of a sucker for totally stupid promotions. It was kind of cool.

They look like this:

Gawker has a piece about blog cliches. It’s pretty funny/ damning:

Best. [ultimate thing or experience.] Ever/Evar.
Likely originating in the reverse (“worst [x] ever”), this clich still has a deathgrip on the media, in all its sincere and sarcastic permutations. It’s usually taken to mean a state of permanent, perpetual bestness, which is of course unsustainable. Sooner or later, something will not be the best [x] ever, and this phrase is a perfect example.

[undesirable counter-example], not so much.
…

Oops. I might do that…

The other piece that’s similar but less funny/ more precise is Gothamist’s What Not to do With Your Blog from a couple years ago.

Both make me think about how I write my blog.

I switched servers. Some stuff is still a bit weird, but this should be running faster now.

Also, for now, blogh.adrianbischoff.com doesn’t work. the address is blog.adrianbischoff.com

Update: blogh.adrianbischoff.com now works in addition to blog.adrianbischoff.com.

Possibly the best japanese game show, or any game show. A foam board with a shape cut out in it moves toward you. You have to fit through the shape or you get knocked into a pool of water. Unexpectedly hilarious. (From Melissa.)

A bunch of inmates in the Philippines do the Thriller video. It’s meticulous and awesome. We’ve seen it at a wedding and in a movie but this may be the most impressive. (From Dave)

Michel Lauziere performs “The Toreador Song” from Carmen on 300 some bottles, hitting them with sticks attached to his roller blades. Very cool and I never would have thought of doing it this way. (From Andy)

It had never rained (in recorded history going back to 1849) on July 18th in San Francisco until this past Wednesday:

San Francisco has the oldest consecutive rain record in California. Wednesday’s rain left July 7 and July 14 as the only days San Francisco has never recorded a measurable amount of rain, 0.01 inches or more.

Man, it’s so weird here….

I’m really sorry. I know my server/ blog is intermittent and slow if it’s even working. I don’t have the time to change servers right this minute.

I’ll try to take care of it this weekend.

I was just thinking about some things I said in situations where I was looking for a job. I’m pretty amused (and proud) of a couple of the things I said.

1. To an Autodesk (makers of AutoCad) representative at the MIT job fair:

So why doesn’t MIT use or teach AutoCad?

2. To an engineer at NASA – Ames interviewing me about a environment-surveying robot that used a parachute with a grappling hook to land on and drag itself up a hillside.

I can’t understand why you would want to solve the problem that way.

Needless to say, I didn’t get either job.

(I’m not actually that irreverent in general but sometimes I just get in a mood, I guess.)

(I should also note that I think both things are fair statements, even in retrospect.)

Google SMS is awesome. You simply text what you want to GOOGLE (466453) and it texts you back almost instantly with what you need.

Traveling in Boston last week, I used this a lot. (It should be noted that I have unlimited text messages.) Don’t know where that bar was? Text “the littlest 02116”. Is my flight on time? Text “AA 631”. What time is that movie showing? “Eagle vs. Shark 02139”. What’s that froyo place’s phone number? “Ankara Cafe Boston”. What’s the weather going to be the next day? “Weather 02139”.

All of these things got me the exact information I wanted quickly. I’m impressed!