Check out these amazing videos, courtesy of google:

First, I will try the video embed thing to see what it looks like. This is Joy Division performing Transmission.

Here are some other goodies:
Nitzer Ebb (Live)
Gary Numan - Cars
Some retro astralwerks thing.

I finally got copies of my Songfight Live 2005 set, courtesy of Tonetripper.

Blimps and MTS are the best ones, but Ken is included for completeness. Enjoy!?

1. Intro
2. Please Don’t Call Me Ken
3. Blimps
4. More Than Soup

stream all

Hopefully we’ll make it to SFLive 2006 (wherever that will be)!

Well, if this week is any indication, this year has the potential to be a busy one indeed.

Why, just this week I received one email from someone at work, in which they asked me a question.

Furthermore, I actually answered that question via email.

It’s a miracle that I also managed to fit in the creation of this masterpiece.

Album-of-the-week: 1-5-06

Hey, it’s the album of the week! I decided to take a break, and not do one of these in 2005. At this rate, I should probably call this the album of the year, but I’m not prepared to heap such glorious praise.

This is infectious britpop with heavy heavy electronic influences. Imagine remixes of the Beatles or maybe Oasis (in a good way). Catchy, wonderfully produced, in album form, one of my Christmas presents — I heartily recommend.

Happy New Year, loyal readership.

I trust you had a momentous Christmas, and 2006 is shaping up to be totally bitchin’.

What did I get for Christmas? Glad you asked.

In the music department, I got the NI Komplete 3 update mentioned a few short posts ago, though Guitar Rig 2 has yet to show up on my doorstep. I also got the Behringer FCB1010 MIDI foot controller. While I would normally not extoll the virtues of Behringer, this thing is pretty awesome. It is amazingly configurable and solidly built. My feet can no longer complain about having nothing to do.

I also got a Nintendo DS. I love it. It feels like a bonafide console that just happens to be portable — unlike the regular GameBoy, which feels more like a little GameCube surrogate. My initial set of games collectively exploits all of the DS’s unique features: Mario Kart uses the built-in wifi connection, Trauma Center: Under the Knife relies on the stylus, and Mario&Luigi: Partners in Time makes particularly good use of the two screens. All of these games are awesome. In my opinion, Nintendo makes its console competitors look like boring weiners.

Here’s what I got in various media categories:

Music

• Boards of Canada: Campfire Headphase
• the Mountaineers: Messy Century
• Fantomas: Suspended Animation
• John Zorn: Spy vs. Spy - The Music of Ornette Coleman

DVD

• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
• I Heart Huckabees
• Star Trek Nemesis
• Spider-Man 2

Books

• Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
• Confusion (pt 2 of the Baroque Cycle) by Neal Stephenson

Board games (does this count as media?)

• Settlers of Catan
• Through the Desert
• Elfenland

Oh, and I got The Movies for the PC. It is fun. Very simsy, and I haven’t yet figured out how to make my own movies, but I am going to work on that.

A parting note…

Christmas has transformed into a materialistic celebration of stuff, and I’m sure this list does little to argue against that. My family is one of copious gift-giving. and I think it’s good to go crazy like this once in a while.

As a Christian, this holiday was a celebration of God’s supreme gift to humanity on the first Christmas so many years ago. Christmas presents were originally exchanged to commemorate that divine Gift, and I hope that as I enjoy these new music-making capabilities and games and books and movies throughout the year, I will remember what they represent.