LA MIX

Happy Friday! Here's a fun party mix I made for our trip to Los Angeles using Ableton Live.   It features a lot of vocoder, a lot of disco, and some electro and house mixed in for fun.  Great for your living room LA dance party!

Download here.

If that link doesn't work, try one of these.

Here's the track list. Have a fun weekend!

Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream (Treasure Fingers remix)
Dragonette - Pick Up The Phone (Michael Van She remix)
Treasure Fingers - Cross the Dancefloor (Lifelike remix)
Royksopp - The Girl and the Robot (Ocelot remix)
MSTRKRFT - Bounce (A-Trak remix dub)
MSTRKRFT - Bodywork
Midnight Star - Operator
Midnight Star - Hold On
Final Edition - I Can Do It Anyway You Want (Duck Sauce remix)
DATA/DEBT - California Special (Eumig and Chinon Remix) vs. Durrough - Ice Cream Paint Job
Louis La Roche - Prick Stick
Britney Spears - If U Seek Amy (U-Tern Disco remix instrumental)
Miami Horror - Don't Be On With Her (Treasure Fingers remix)
Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer (Database remix)
Justice - D.V.N.O. (LA Riots remix)
MGMT vs. Justice - Electric Feel
MGMT vs Justice vs Kanye - Electric Touch (Mighty Mi/Steve1der mashup)
Mr. Oizo - Two Takes It (Ft. Carmen Castro)
Lloyd - Girls Around the World (Skinny Friedman remix)
Michael Jackson - Working Day and Night
Shalamar - Make That Move
Candi Redd - Independent Bitches (Dual Citizen remix)
The Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage (Fred Falke remix)
Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars

Fun with tar

One interesting Los Angeles park where our fantastic hosts/tour guides took us was the La Brea Tar Pits. In pre-historic times, animals used to go drink from the water and get sucked into the tar.

The cries of the animals attracted more animals, and they would get stuck as well. That sucks for the animals, but it's great news for paleontologists today who can dig out the fossils.

It's also great news for tourists and locals who can enjoy a nice afternoon at the La Brea Tar Pits.


(Click here for YouTube version.)

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day releasing tomorrow in the US!

Canadians are sometimes forced to wait for American TV shows or movies to appear north of the border. But the opposite is true for the epilogue of the long-running and totally fucking awesome Canadian comedic mockumentary TV/movie series: The Trailer Park Boys.

Countdown to Liquor Day was released in Canadian theaters last September. American fans have been waiting on edge for the US release date of the DVD, which just so happens to be THIS TUESDAY. It is available for pre-order on Amazon, but a customer service agent told me that means it will be shipped on February 23; it does not mean it would arrive on Tuesday.

Happily, the people at Best Buy are finally doing something right and stocking this thing on Tuesday. We'll be at the fucking door.

If you have not heard of The Trailer Park Boys, I urge you to give it a shot. You can buy the complete series or watch full episodes on YouTube (or find it another way). It all started in 1999, when Creator Mike Clattenberg wrote and directed a low budget mockumentary about a pair of liquor drinking, pot smoking, petty criminals and debuted in at Canada's Atlantic Film Festival.

Eleven years later, The Trailer Park Boys has spurned seven TV seasons, a couple TV specials, and two movies. It has also inspired a legion of rabidly loyal fans who obsess about the show on web forums.

If you've never seen TPB, you might think the show is based on laughing insensitively at the socioeconomically disadvantaged. And in a way I guess it is. But that's not all it is.

The characters are not one dimensional. They feel human. And they are relatable. Growing up in a small town in the mountains of western Canada, I felt like the characters on the Trailer Park Boys were an amalgam of people I actually knew, and maybe even included a part of myself. They are believable. And they have heart.

The Trailer Park Boys also boasts some great Canadian actors. Ellen Page, now famous in the US because of Juno, got an early start as a character on the show. Barrie Dunn, who plays the hard drinking cheapskate Ray on TPB, is in real life a Canadian TV producer, actor, and a practicing attorney.

One of my favorite characters is Jim Lahey, the uber-hammered manager of the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Lahey is played by Canadian theater veteran John Dunsworth (his daughter Sarah is also on the show). Dunsworth proves his acting skills by turning a character who should be a depressing alcoholic into a hilarious clown:


But the main focus of the show is Ricky, Bubbles and Julian.  They're just three friends looking to swindle enough cash to have an early retirement.  And sometimes the law catches up with them.

Anyway, I could ramble on about this show forever. If you like Canadian trivia, drinking, and low brow humor, you should watch the last eleven years of The Trailer Park Boys from beginning to end.  You can thank me later.

Tomorrow is Liquor Day in America.

Santa Monica Pier

The Santa Monica Pier is an icon of Los Angeles and a staple of American pop culture. It's at the end of Route 66, and it's been in a bunch of movies and TV shows. Much like Venice Beach, visiting for the first time feels like you've been here before. Maybe that's why it's constantly packed with tourists (like us).

On the day we visited, the sun was elusive. It was a weekday so the beach wasn't packed. But it sure was nice to sit and watch the waves crash on the shore. Hadn't been to an ocean for a while and the white noise of the waves is always soothing.

(Click here for YouTube version)

We also rode the ferris wheel. It's normally five bucks, but they had a weekday special going on, so it only cost $3/person. The ride gives you great views of the surrounding area.

Statue at George Bush Intercontinental Airport

I posted a video of this place several months ago, but I never realized that Houston's international airport includes this larger than life statue of H. W. Bush.  I love how he is flinging his jacket over his shoulder with such a carefree, jet setting finesse.  Note how his tie is frozen in mid-flutter.  This statue is called "Winds of Change."

Whiplash, the scooter with a twist

What kind of parent would buy their kid a product named after an injury? The Whiplash was in a Sky Mall catalog I was reading en route to LA. I realize the name "Whiplash" sounds cool to kids, but I just thought, worst product name ever for a push scooter.

Stupid markdowns at Wal-Mart Supercenter

I came across these ridiculous markdowns a couple weeks ago.

"Was $1.58, now $1.56!"

"Was 70 cents, now 68 cents!"

I guess what frustrates me most about these pricing labels is not the lack of discount, but the implicit message that I am stupid enough to fall it.  How often do we turn off our minds and just grab whatever item has the "On Sale" sign next to it.  Clearly, more often than we think, if the marketing geniuses at Wal-Mart are up to this!

Audio CAPTCHA sounds like my nightmares

Have you noticed this? I don't think the visually impaired deserve to be terrorized by such frightening sounds just to authenticate their identity.  Take a listen.



I can't say if all CAPTCHA is this frightening but this one sent chills down my spine!

Vancouver Time Lapse Video (Redub)

These guys put together an extremely visually compelling time lapse video featuring scenes of my city! Unfortunately, the music they chose was dreadful.  Cheesy, Enya-inspired, new age music with lyrics about Vancouver -- just too obvious and literal.

In honor of today's opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Games, I decided to do everyone a favor and redub this amazing video with some other music that I thought better reflected Vancouver's mood.

Vancouver is such an aesthetically pleasing city, and my one Olympic wish is that TV stations covering the games transmit that in their broadcasts.  Tonight's opening ceremonies present an opportunity for all sorts of helicopter and crane shots. Let's make it happen TV networks!

Today, someone pointed out to me another amazing way to take in Vancouver over the internet.  This site gives you 360 rotational viewpoints from several points in the city.  The images are large, allowing you to zoom in quite a bit.  It's the next best thing to flying over the city!

Austin's Hike and Bike Trail (Part I)

Join us on a leisurely stroll along one of the oldest linear parks in Texas: Austin's treasured Hike and Bike Trail. It's super long, so these images represent just a short section of it. I hope to explore more of this trail in the future and bring a slice of Austin to you!