In the land of multi-terrabyte hard drives, iPods, MP3’s and ‘infinite playlists’, the art of actually using some restrain and editing to create a cohesive, interesting representation of your musical self is an art form long lost.

On my continual quest for quality and fresh music, about twice a year I create an 80-minute mix CD of my ‘favorites’ that I’m rocking at the moment.

While I haven’t made a ‘mix tape’ since college (yes, that is an actual one of mine above), I still have a CD player in my car which is where 90% of the mix is consumed.  Some rules I follow when creating my mix:

1. A majority of the music must be < 1 year old – While I might create a ‘best of grunge’ mix or something like that, for the most part, I want to hear new music.  The life of the CD is usually around 3-6 months until I am ready to make a new one.
2. Genre variety – I want to hit 2-3 genres at least, but no hard and fast rules.  Just not 80 minutes of metal–the mix needs some contrast (not so true of “Ultra Mosh II” above…)
3. No more than 3 songs from the same artist/album – If you really like an album, it forces you to pick your favorite 3.  Also, mix them up throughout the mix
4. Fill the 80 minutes as best you can – For my mix below, it clocks in at 79:59.11.  Yes, less than 1 second to spare! (with 0 second breaks between tracks as well)
5. Try to make the tracks ‘flow’ – This can be tough… I don’t spend hours doing this, but you typically want some contrast without abruptness
6. Don’t repeat a song from one mix CD to the next – Yeah, that song may be your favorite, but if that’s true, try and find a re-mix.  I did that below w/ the 2 Bloc Party tracks.

While you could, of course, do this exercise with an MP3 playlist, often you wouldn’t use any harsh editing because you usually don’t have constraints (after all, an 80 min. mix encoded at 256K is only about 160MB, which most every MP3 player has at least 10-100 times that much room…)

So without further ado, here is my Summer 2009 Mix.  The first thing you might notice when reading the below is that YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF ANY OF THESE SONGS OR BANDS.  Well, the mix is mine, so that’s your problem…  I typically try to put some indie, punk, alternative, electronica, so while you may not know them, the songs work for me (and they are good, trust me).  Own your mix, it is something that is probably truly unique to you.

Matt’s 80-minute 2009 Summer Mix: (with links to either the video or a streamable version of the song)

1. Bloc Party – Ares (Villains Remix)
2. Julian Plenti  – Games For Days (Paul Banks of Interpol, solo album)
3. Röyksopp ft Robyn – The Girl & The Robot
4. Future Of The Left – Stand By Your Manatee
5. Flight of the Conchords – Sugalumps
6. Does It Offend You, Yeah? – With a Heavy Heart(I Regret to Inform You)
7. Silversun Pickups – Growing Old is Getting Old
8. Late of The Pier – Space and The Woods
9. The Bird and the Bee – Diamond Dave
10. Flight of the Conchords – You don’t have to be a Prostitute
11. The Mars Volta – Cotopaxi
12. Sunspot – Grand Guignol
13. Bloc Party – One Month Off (Filthy Dukes Remix)
14. The Bird and the Bee – My Love
15. Future of the Left – Arming Eritrea
16. Does it Offend you, Yeah? – Attack of the 60ft Lesbian Octopus
17. Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch
18. Flight of the Conchords – Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor
19. The Bird and the Bee – Polite Dance Song (this video is soooo David Lynch)
20. Sunspot – Sweet Relief
21. Silversun Pickups – Catch and Release

That clocks 79:59.11.  Do you still make mixes?  Favorite ones you’ve made?  Comments, baby.

While there have been countless comparisons of the Palm Pre to the Apple iPhone, I haven’t seen many comparing the Palm Pre to the Treo line of products (Treo 650, Treo 700p, Treo 755p, Treo Centro). There are still tens of thousands of old Sprint SERO customers on a Treo 700p (or similar) that like me, are looking to upgrade to something. The old Sprint SERO plan was at it’s peak around 2-3 years ago, so many Sprint customers are either rolling off their plans, or at a minimum, definitely ready for a new phone.

image by THA Casino

I was a Treo 700p user for 3 years with heavy use on a $30 SERO plan (upgraded later to $45 with unlim. text). For over a year of that, I also extensively used email, RSS, web, Twitter, Twitpic, Facebook, etc. I made the move from the Treo 700p to the Palm Pre in early June 2009, and decided to put together the comparison of what you have to look forward to (or what you have to give up): NOTE: this comparison was written on 7/27/09 and is based on Palm Pre WebOS v1.1

Do you enjoy playing online games? Are you a fan of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft? If you are, you might want to check out this site at https://Gold4Vanilla.com where you can buy WoW Classic Gold.

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I’m still working on my review for the Palm Pre (I’ve had it less than a week), but in the meantime, enjoy some wallpapers I created specifically for the Palm Pre!

The images are from various trips I’ve taken the last few years and are already sized and optimized for view on the Palm Pre (320×480 resolution, appropriate sharpness, etc.).

To get these wallpapers on your Palm Pre simply:

1. Click the file(s) you like, and when the file is loaded right-click and save to your computer.
2. Plug your Palm Pre into the USB port of your computer and choose “USB Drive”.
3. Once the folder opens on your computer, copy the images into the “Wallpaper” directory on your Palm Pre (you don’t have to do this, but it may be easier to find them than just copying them in the root folder).
4. After you disconnect your Pre, go to the “Screen & Lock” application and choose “Change Wallpaper” to set your desired background!

Pretty easy as you can see.  On to the wallpapers!

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It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been friends with Madison, WI rock band Sunspot for over 10 years!  Since tomorrow they are releasing their 5th full-length album, Singularity, I thought I would post some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of Mike, Ben and Wendy over the last decade.  Out of over 8000 (!) that I’ve taken, here are 130 ordered chronologically that are my favorites.  Check it.

Almost as crazy as attending one of their live shows is the number of digital cameras I’ve owned over this same time frame…it’s pretty nuts:

• 1999-2001 Largan Lmini 350 – 0.6 MegaPixel – this thing was terrible in most every way, but it was digital, which is what a digital guy needs.  Yeah, 0.6MP.
• 2001-2003 Sony FD-90 – 1.6MP – Great optics, but sloooow camera.  Made you slow down, but almost too much.  I still have some pictures I really like from this camera.  If it only had 10x the sensor quality.
• 2003-2005 Olympus 5050z – 5.0MP – My first prosumer camera, this taught me the photo basics, mainly aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
• 2005-2006 Canon Digital Rebel –  6.3MP – The first in a crazy-upgrade cycle of Rebels.
• 2006-2007 Canon Digital Rebel XT – 8.0MP – I started selling stock photos and the upgrades in both lenses and cameras now were ‘funded’.  It’s nice when your hobbies pay for themselves.
• 2007-2008 Canon Digital Rebel XTi – 10.1MP – Sensor cleaning = good!  A great camera, I only really upgraded because in stock photography it helps to have higher MegaPixel for increased size for increased $$.
• 2008-2009 Canon Digital Rebel XSi – 12.2MP – While still a very capable camera, I’ve vowed this is the last Rebel I’d buy… the 50D (or 60D) or 5D MarkII product line is next for me, but I’ve been investing in lenses lately.
• I had a Casio Exilm EX-Z57 which I used only for a couple of shots at shows (since I had the Rebel then).  What’s most interesting about this camera, is it is what Wendy uses for her “Drummercam” photos!

Finally, I also have a video of Sunspot from their March 2009 show at the Frequency. They are playing their song “Neanderthal” and they segue into some Megadeth.

It’s shot with my Canon Vixia HF100 HD video camera.  It’s flash based, small with a great quality picture, even in low light.

Be sure to check out Sunspot live if you get a chance–they don’t disappoint!  Pick up their new album too!

Over 2 years ago, my friend Chad Draheim was contacted by HGTV for a show they were doing entitled “Man Land” (they found his ‘casino basement‘ blog post).  After the long wait, it was on HGTV last Saturday!  Even though it is episode #2, they played it as the premier episode.

Since most people aren’t watching TV @ noon on a Saturday, (and it’s nowhere to be seen online) I decided to rip it from my DVR.  I edited it down to 7 minutes which is just the part featuring Chad and Kitt’s Basement:

In the clip is Chad, Kitt and Keely Draheim, the host George Gray, Chad’s brother Brian, Apollo Marquez, Matt Griswold and me!  It was a lot of fun to film, and it was interesting seeing how much time, effort and footage goes into just 7 minutes of television (i.e. they edited my interview down to about 7 seconds, which is probably a good thing since I don’t really remember what I was talking about).

Man Land is available in HD on HGTV and looks like it will continue to be on Saturday’s at 1PM eastern and pacific, noon central.  Enjoy!