Swim Good to Otis

I make sure to listen to this every time I check out the Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape but as Ocean would say, I want to hear someone harmonize to Otis, so here's a link to Jay-Z and Kanye's, or The Throne's, song "Otis" off their Watch the Throne album.

Hate Mondays?

And you thought your Monday's were bad?

Fat Back

So I try to eat healthy.  My diet consists heavily of smoothies, grilled fish, and rotisserie chicken, but when I take my yearly trip to North Carolina, to visit my dad's side of the family, that pretty much goes out the window.  My dad always tells me about some of the things that he loved as a kid but no longer eats because it's more of a southern thing and now he knows how bad it the food is for him.  One of those tasty childhood treats is fat back.  What is fat back you ask?  It is literally the thin layer of skin and thick layer of fat from the back of a pig . . . fried -_-.  I've heard about this for years, but just the other day my grandmother was eating some and asked me if I've had any before.  After I said no she said that I have to try I piece, so I asked for the smallest one possible.  It wasn't bad but I don't think I'm going to integrate friend pig fat into my diet.

Everyone Loves Music

Rock the Bells 2011

Purchased the Rock the Bells 2011 tickets last week.  VIP, front row of the orchestra section.  Can't wait to hear Illmatic live.

Sleep When I Die

It's five in the morning in this part of the country and I can't sleep, so I'm listening to Frank Ocean.

Basketball

Dislocated my shoulder playing basketball 4 weeks ago from this Tuesday while playing at Wilson Park in Torrance.  It quickly popped out but I felt it pop back in.  I played one game after and did pretty well.  I was going to drop my stuff off at home and go to the hospital, but then I saw the traffic on the way to the hospital and decided I was fine . . . great decision.  I waited 2 weeks to play again and made sure I didn't even sleep on that side or lift while I was at the gym.  That time I played, I went off.  We lost the first game but I scored about 5-6 of our 7-8 points.  We won the second game and I scored 8-9 of our 11 points, but I accidentally injured the guy guarding me, so I decided to sit out the next game after he left.  My shoulder got pretty sore during this time; although, it felt strong while I was playing.

I played again today, twenty-one against my dad and uncle.  I quickly got to 20 while they had 6 and 4 . . . it took them awhile to warm up.  I struggled to make the last three but I finally did and good thing because they had caught up.  After the game, my shoulder began to slightly burn then it really started to hurt.  It goes without saying, but I'm making a doctors appointment for right after I get back to Los Angeles.

New Lil' Wayne Mixtape

So Wayne dropped a new mixtape, Sorry 4 the Wait, full of freestyles since there has been a lack of music from him recently, jail tends to do that.  But you won't get the most complex word play from him there, but it's still enjoyable to listen to.  I posted my favorite song on it above.  My thing is, and I don't know the song where the instrumental is from, this song is SO Houston.  I'm a huge fan of Houston style rap, so I will like anything chopped and screwed.  Enjoi the music.

MellowHype

Finally got MellowHype's album Blackenedwhite, I'm only a few tracks in but I'm licking it so far.  The beats feel fresh and the rapping feels old school with an updated twist . . . I don't know.  To each his own, but I'm feeling it.

Music Got You Bent

A Kind Word?

Fresh in Red

Like the jacket, don't like getting shot because of its color -_-

Old Clipse

Just heard this recently.  They are so raw

Trust Issues (Remix)

Trust Issues

Galaxy Tab 10.1

Ordered the Galaxy Tab 10.1 last night.  It'll get here on Friday and I'll post unboxing pics and let you know how I like it.

For this Weeknd

Reminder

Just wanted to remind you that you've seen nothing yet.

"Rolling Stone" by The Weeknd

Some new music from The Weeknd

Dreams You Can Buy

Robot Dance

These look more coordinated than you? . . . probably

Cotton Steeze

I want this shirt . . . why has it been back ordered for over a month?

Beautiful Art

Some great photos came with the Good Form Remix of Childish Gambino's "Put It In My Video," so I'll post em. They're of Desiree Elyda and taken by Luis Valdizon.  There are 5 pictures, here's the first.

Smile . . . It's Pretty Strong

How powerful is a smile?  Find out here.  Another TED Talk for you.

Creativity Can't Be Taken Away

One of my favorite TED Talks was about an artist who became paralyzed and what a group of people did to help him share more of his art with the world.

You can find it here on Hulu.

Google I/O 2011

Google I/O 2011 ended today.  There were many great reveals.  I'm very excited about the new tablet version of Android, 3.1, but more so for the version, 2.4 a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, that merges the tablet and phone OSs into one version of Android.  From a developers point of view, it's a great thing.  BTW, I'm to pay their small fee and become an official Android Developer soon.  I'm bouncing some name ideas off of people to see which one's best.  I'll update on that later.  If you want to find out about anything that went on during the I/O conference, many videos are up on Google developer's channel on YouTube here.

New Dr. Dre Track feat. Eminem

Check out the new track Die Hard by Dr. Dre ft. Eminem being played as the show Pacquiao and Mosley training.  This will be on Detox

Cause there are 50 Ways

I've always done things differently and have never been easy to put into a category, this song reminds me that that's okay.

Minaj Intro

The first song I heard by Nicki Minaj by herself that made me a fan.

I like her word play and delivery, plus her confidence is just below the point of ridiculous arrogance . . . a good point to me haha.

Previous Post

The entire previous post was written using Google's official Blogger app on my HTC Evo while waiting for my car to get washed and waxed.  I took the screen shots using the ShootMe app.  Took me about 30 minutes, not bad huh?

doubleTwist

So I started using a new app on Android called doubleTwist, it bills itself as the app for Android user that'll help you get rid of your iTunes envy. Due to the poor battery life on my phone, I have a 160 GB iPod that I carry around with me so I wouldn't be completely getting rid of iTunes but I still wanted to give it a try.

First off, with my quad core i7 and 16 MBps internet speed, I was able to download and install the desktop application in less than 5 minutes. In a couple more minutes, I had all my music and playlists displayed in the doubleTwist application. As far as start up times go, this was simply amazing. It definitely has an iTunes like interface so any user will feel right at home. I was able to connect my HTC Evo and sync playlists that I wanted to appear on my phone. It was very easy. The actual syncing took a little while but it still felt close to the time it would've taken an iPod and iTunes. 

The actual Android app is fairly nice. All of the buttons on the main menu are large and easy to press.  The submenus are easy to navigate and it's an all around nice looking app.  The great thing is that the lock screen for the phone when this app OS running is the cover art with play controls so you don't have to unlock the phone.

My only complaint is that the desktop application uses too many resources on my laptop. It needed about 155 kB of memory while just running, not playing music, while iTunes only needed about 18 kB.  I have 8 GB of RAM but that's still a lot of memory for a music player, IMO. I plan on keeping the desktop app but only to sync music with my phone, not as my standard music player.

The Longest Text Message

This video doesn't show up when I try to add it, so here's a direct link to a youtube video of "Glass Tables" by The Weeknd and it's made with clips from the movie The Girlfriend Experience.  I've never seen the movie, but the song seems to fit the clips very well and the editing was nicely done.

Apple Should Take Notice

A great idea for notifications that should be implemented in iOS.  I'm an Android user, but I like great ideas and implementations.

Watch it here

Put It In My Video (Good Form Remix)

Download Link

It's in .rar format with some additions

Here's the producer who remixed it Good Form

For your Weeknd

XO

Blind to Ourselves

I saw a TED Talk a couple weeks ago, refer to the a previous posting to find out what that is, where a woman by the name of Caroline Casey shared a life changing experience and how she fought through a tough situation her entire life.  I will not ruin it for you, but part of her presentation was about looking at yourself honestly, knowing who you are and what you want from life.  The things this woman has accomplished are extraordinary . . . with her condition, they are almost unbelievable.  Check out her presentation called Looking Past Limits, it's a link to Hulu.

Portal 2

Finally getting a chance to check out Portal 2 after getting it on Tuesday.  I'm loving the humor so far.

New Music From Santigold

Go-Santigold (ft/ Karen-O)

The Killer of Creativity

     Recently, I've been watching TED Talks which are global conferences based on the principle of ideas worth spreading.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design and the conferences cover a wide range of subjects.  I've been able to relate to all of the non technical presentations  that I've seen so far, not because of a wide assortment of experiences that I've have but the talks I've seen deal with the basic human experience, in one way or another.  They may not seem that way at first, but they all eventually conclude on a few points that every being has probably dealt or struggled with in one way or another.
      I saw my first TED Talk last year about how schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson.  The particular video I saw was not necessarily the one where he's presenting in front of an audience but the audio was used with someone drawing the actions described.  I bring up Ken because he made a great point that many of us who have taken the education route have felt at least once before, but he supported it with data.  Most of the time in schools, we are learning what someone else has done and solving problems similar to what we've studied, but maybe in new ways.  Even in design courses I've taken in college, the classes were structured around known designs and the situations where these designs can be used.  Now, I believe this is very useful, because it would be asinine to reinvent the wheel, but what if we are faced with a situation that requires true out of the box thinking where we can't simply fall back on how things were done in the past?  I think this what if question isn't so much a what if question, but rather a reality of life.  We are all faced with new situations that require us to react in novel ways and if we simply try to recreate the past we will fail.

     Sir Robinson makes many other points and I would like to say something more about other things he mentioned, but I said I would always keep my post short so they wouldn't be a chore to read.  You can see the Youtube video here.

Supra

Got my first pair of Supras, they're really comfortable but very wide . . . I have a narrow foot.  I love the look and comfort.  I will be getting more, just gotta see how they stand the test of time.  I took some shots to give you a good look at them, they're the Gunny Black TUFs.

Monster Turbines

Got some new earbuds, I've been using the very portable Sennheiser PXC 310 BT as my headphones but wanted some earbuds with good bass response for even more portability, hot days, etc.  After a lot of research, I decided on the Monster Turbines and without burning them in yet, they sound very crisp and clear.  Once a proper fit was found, the bass was simply amazing.  Here are some unboxing pics:

The only thing I have say about the packaging is that it's very nice.  A box with a magnetic closure and two different carrying cases are definitely a nice touch, you feel like you've brought something special.

Pusha T-Fear of God

New Pusha T mixtape came out recently, it's called Fear of God.  It sounds good so far, I'm about half way through the mixtape, but it makes me really excited for an album.  If you don't know, I'm a HUGE fan of the Clipse with Hell Hath No Fury being one of my favorite albums.  Impressions coming soon.

Update:
A solid mixtape, it feels different without Malice for sure, along with the pain that he expresses from his past lifestyle, but it's still good.  Pusha takes others artists beats and truly makes them his own.  Malice is currently writing a book, I believe about his journey towards God, and was unable to work on the new Re-Up Gang or Clipse album with Pusha and Ab-Liva.  Pusha said he was actually scared after he started working on the mixtape because his brother was not there and was worried that his brother finding religion could mean that he could not have his brother backing him up on a track, supporting him, etc. and Pusha literally feared God, hence the title.  In my opinion, the somber beat of Jay-Z's "Can I Live" gave Pusha the perfect score to direct a beautiful mafia inspired film.  This mixtape is something to check out for Clipse and punch line rap fans alike.

The Weeknd for your weekend

Just got wind of this group from Toronto called The Weeknd.  Their mixtape, House of Balloons just dropped today and you can find it here.  They're an R&B group, but the delivery feels fresh and smooth, nothing that's simply copy and pasted.  Here's one of my favorite songs by them to give you a taste.  Let me know what you think.