It’s been a while since I’ve seen a really original idea involving robots. This one is REALLY good.

The Body, The Circuit, The Computer and The Voice: robot cowboy from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

Thanks @tjnelsonjr for the heads up on this musical gem. It comes from across the sea by a band called Marina and the Diamonds and its called “I am not a robot”. Though its not actually our theme song, I can dig it.

Miss marina diamond undoubtedly has a great voice and I will definitely be keeping an eye on this ensemble.

Take a listen: I am not a robot – Marina and the Diamonds

So many of you enjoyed listening to me rant about how much I despise Facebook (and trust me I still do), but I have indeed reactivated my account. There are several reasons why I chose to do this:

1. My Nephew – My 1.6 year old nephew is growing faster than anyone can believe. Unfortunantely being 3000 miles away does not allow me to see him as often as I would like. My sister posts about a million pictures a week of him on Facebook and its the easiest way for me to see the progression. That said, I’ve still have a travel budget to allow me to see him at least a few times year.

2. Jobs – Not necessarily for me, but my Dad got laid off recently. It’s kinda hard to think that for the entire time I’ve been alive my dad has held the same job. A few weeks ago, on the eve of Christmas, my dad was quietly laid-off. So for the first time in 25 years, my dad is looking for a job and I plan to help him in any way I can. Specifically, knowing anyone who knows someone who knows someone who knows of a job for my dad may be helpful.

3. You guys – While I tried to remain in contact with many of you via non-facebook methods, it was still difficult. My twitter usage went up which is good because Twitter takes up less of my time then Facebook, but its not the same info you can share on FB. Although, there was no disruption in communication with any of my really close friends, a few others missed out on a few things I was up to and likewise.

4. The 2009 Music Drive – Last year I barely worked on any music projects and I won’t let that happen again. This year I’ll be writing/recording a lot more and I plan to share everything with you all.

Facebook Rehab Observations:
So even though I’m “back” on facebook, I’d like to state that a few things I had said in my last post still hold true. First, I’m still upset that people don’t talk to each other in real life anymore. It’s quite the bummer really. People like to go out and still remain in their bubble. I believe this is a social side effect of how we behave in the online world and it has unfortunately invaded reality! Second, social networking in real life is much more powerful and beneficial. In the last 45 days I’ve met more interesting people then the 5 odd years I’ve had on Facebook. Essentially for the last 45 days my life has felt like the scene below:

In my 45 day-no-facebook-vacation, I learned a lot. There are very specific reasons why I’ve decided to re-activate my facebook account but I still don’t like it. I think if you are using it for pure “communication” and meeting new people I think there are better ways than Facebook. Use email and go outside if you want to do that. If you are using it for sharing content with your friends and loved ones, then I think its decent. There are more personal ways of sharing content but “I guess this will do.”

Unfortunately, the more we try to complicate communication this less we’ll communicate. Take for example, Myspace’s new user verification procedure you must use every time you log-in:

Um, I don’t know about you but I’m not going to log into a site where I have to verify whether or not I’m a human or a robot every time. That is lame. So maybe I’ll log into my myspace music account every two or three months now. Thanks!

Regardless, I really recommend the Facebook vacation. It’s really healthy and I feel a lot better about everything after this. Perhaps, at the end of 2009 I’ll do the same thing again. It’s a great way to check-in with reality.

Kraftwek

Daft Punk

Toyota!

Random (but pretty cool)

But for some reason you find yourself listening to the same handful of songs.

Am I the only one??

There are always those staple albums or artists that you quickly navigate to when you need a sountrack to something you are doing. If you took my iPod and searched for the most played song on it, it would probably look something like. “Human After All” – Daft Punk: Played 6,938 times. Yeah, I know Daft Punk is awesome but I could’ve listened to that song maybe just 1,000 times and instead listened to 5,938 other songs I never knew existed on my own iPod.

So for the remainder of the month of September (and hopefully longer if I can survive) I will be only listening to my iPod (in my car) on shuffle =0

I think it’ll be really interesting to find out how many random songs I’ve actually never heard that are ALREADY on my ipod …