In my old back yard in Miami, FL

In my old back yard in Miami, FL

• Using a carrot for a bullet
• Using bullets as an indicator that the text following is a link
• Using Helvetica for all the text on the page
• Setting all body copy at 10px

I know it seems trivial but it just bugs the hell out of me.

I'm not complaining and actually think it's a good thing that Facebook does this. I sure don't want it to turn into the utter mess that MySpace is. Some times censorship is good. Even though I was posting about a news story, a ridiculous one actually. I'm glad they have that censorship in place.

NBC had 4 years to design and develop this website and this is the best they can do? The animation at the top is absolutely horrible not to mention it uses Silverlight. I had to download it, install and relaunch my browser. I don't even know where to begin with the design, it's just horrible.

The "Download Video" section requires: Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Media Center Edition or Windows Vista. Come on now this is 2008, you can't give me that platform issue excuse anymore. Not to mention once you navigate to the "Video Downloads" the navigation completely disappears.

There are so many issues with this site that I could go on and on about. It's the Olympics I want to be impressed. Come on NBC you can do better than this.

So the band is Modest Mouse. I've wanted to see them forever, even more now just to see the former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Not that I actually listen to the Smiths but I do appreciate the influence they have on much of the music that I do listen to.

Starts bad and only gets worse

First, I was not happy about the price of the tickets, they where $30.00 plus the Ticketmaster fees. I think my total cost was over $40 for the tickets. This didn't upset me too much because it was a band I really wanted to see. A co-worker of mine told me that the venue was an ice rink and it's a horrible place to see bands. Needless to say I was not happy to hear that after just spending $40 on tickets. In my mind I was convincing myself that it's still worth it and I'm going with a good friend of mine and we will have a good time.

I show up at the venue and it's a long wait of cars to get to the parking lot. I'm shocked to see the amount of teenagers, I was expecting to see more people around the age of 30 like myself. I notice the rent-a-cops and I pull up and see the sign for $5 to park and my first glimpse of the Rostraven Ice Garden. Not only am I upset of forking over $5 to park but one look at the exterior of the Ice Garden I knew this was going to be bad. The rent-a-cops directed me to park in the grass field. It's been raining for days and it was pretty muddy.

I make my way through the parking lot and get inside the building. The interior is very dilapidated and was probably built in the late 60's early 70's and hasn't been touched since then. I get to the rink part where the opening band was playing and was happy they actually melted the ice, I've heard sometimes they just lay carpet over the ice and it becomes a big slushy mess, someone actually recommended that I should wear snow boots.

I take a look at the sound system and the engineers which appeared to be high school teenagers that would be running sound at a high school musical production. The place sounded horrible, everything echoed. I was feeling anxious to see Modest Mouse and was praying the sound would be better. I look over at the beer cart and the choices are Miller Lite or none, so I chose none.

Finally Modest Mouse

They show up on stage and all the teenagers go crazy and push towards the stage. If you never heard of Modest Mouse, I've made a muxtape so you can listen. They have a very interesting sound that I can't really explain. Needless to say they have two drummers, guitars, bass and keyboards. Also they switch it up with other instruments like the Upright Bass, Banjo, Squeeze Box and assorted other instruments.

The sound seemed to get a little better but it still echoed. It was interesting to see Isaac Brock use two different mics for vocals for his different vocal styles. I was happy to finally see them play, they impressed me but it was unfortunate that the sound sucked and the venue was horrible.

It only gets worse

So the show is over, I got to see Modest Mouse finally, I was pleased but not happy. It's pouring outside and thousands of teenagers are trying to leave a drenched parking lot. I get to my car and don't move for about 45 minutes. Kids are stuck in the mud everywhere they don't know what to do to maneuver the car to get out of the mud so they just put the gas peddle to the floor and dig themselves even deeper into the mud. I can't help but to chuckle a bit. I'm wondering why I paid $5 to park because noone is directing traffick and it's a total cluster fuck of teenagers all trying to exit the parking lot. Some attempt bold moves to get around the stagnant traffic and wind up in ditches. It's almost a scene from a post apocalyptic movie. All I could do is feel sorry for all these kids, they paid good money for this show, paid to park and the venue failed on them and didn't help with directing traffic and providing safety.

I will never go to Rostraven Ice Garden ever again, not even if John Lennon rose from the grave and the Beattles did one more show at the Ice Garden.

Enjoy Modest Mouse (I couldn't add songs from a few albums due to DRM)

Of special note the track from Isis + Aereogramme is a cool project from the Konkurrent Label from the "In The Fishtank" series.

In The Fishtank is an ever ongoing project of Konkurrent, independent music distributor in the Netherlands. In this collection Konkurrent invites musicians to whom they feel strongly related to record. They are given two days studio time and freedom to do whatever they like musically.

The Fishtank offers a space for expression and experimentation, results may vary but are always surprising.

Enjoy Muxtape #4

The answer is pretty simple. I use iTunes. Well let's go deeper than that, I have a large collection of content already dedicated to iTunes. All my music and podcasts are already in iTunes. I have an iPod somewhere, it's missing at the moment but I do have one. I do not have an iPhone but I will eventually.

But what about recording TV shows?
My cable box already does that, so I don't need my "media center" to perform that function.

The AppleTV provides the best solution, I can stream all my music to it and then through my stereo. I can rent HD movies, entertain myself with YouTube videos, look through my flickr photos (well, not actually at the moment because it's not recognizing my flickr info) on a glorious 423 LCD TV. It's providing everything I need in a nice simple little box with TWO wires, the HDMI cable and the power cable.

If I went down the route of the traditional PC media center, which I have considered doing since the time I worked at Alienware, it would of been way too complex and I really don't need that. I have enough wires and junk behind my entertainment center as it is with the Receiver, DVD player, Wii, Cable box and the soon to be Xbox. I'm actually eliminating the carousel CD Player, because now it's obsolete.

So if you want a more complex solution. Go for it, but the AppleTV is actually pretty powerful for such a simple device that takes about 2 minutes to set up.

We tell stories stories about seeing Ink & Dagger in someones basement and getting that first 73 vinyl that only 200 or so where made with a cover hand made by one of the members. We talk about bands like Drive Like Jehu and the amazing guitar work that leads too Rocket From The Crypt and seeing Rocket at the 31st Pub and we are only a foot away from these music gods with only 100 other people in the room. The conversation circles back to Hot Snakes which has two members of Drive Like Jehu. We can go on and on for hours about music and we do.

We always agree that our all time favorite band is Sunny Day Real Estate. Here's this weeks Muxtape inspired by that road trip. I apologize for the quality of some of the songs they are from vinyl and I can't even remember how I got them converted to mp3.

Muxtape 3 roadtrip inspired

I'm not done yet, but a nice foundation is now down and I can build from here. Next steps will probably be moving to Wordpress 2.5.1. Also expanding the portfolio section and doing some more tweaks here and there.

Also on the interwebs.

I've found myself listening to the YLNT podcast. Alex is Awesome! I need this Calendar. I just read this book. Oh and one more thing. Apparently Twitter went down this past weekend and I didn't even notice!

In my day job we have very specialized roles. You have User Experience, Content Writers, Client Service, Designers, Front End Coders, Flash Developers, Back End Programmers, IT and of course all the managers of each of those functions.

Where as in my freelance work I'm personally doing UE, Content Organization (not writing), Client Service and Design. I get others to do the development and such, because that is definitely not one of my strengths, but I don't mind doing it for myself.

I could never handle all that stuff on my own during my day time job, the projects are far too large and much more complicated than my freelance jobs. But, by the time my projects launch I don't feel as satisfied. It's usually been months since I've last seen the project or been involved in it. There are always a lot of things I would like tweaked. Move this a pixel here, tweak this a bit there maybe completely rework something because it's not really working. Maybe, it's our process and I should be more involved as things get developed.

Mean while in my freelance jobs I can have something moved a pixel, completely rework something that may not be working as well as initially intended. I can be more involved in the development of the site. Because the developers look to me for approval on everything and I can pay attention more to the little details and have the changes made.

When there are more cooks in the kitchen there just seems to be a lot more noise, be it for the better or not. I guess that's one of the great parts of doing freelance, you have more control. Then again the projects we do at work are great I'm always dissatisfied with little pieces here and there. But maybe my freelance projects aren't the best solution either because I'm wearing too many hats and not getting enough of others feedback.

I guess at the end of the day things can always be improved, so does it really matter?