Everyone Hates Orange

We tend to think of pink as being a girl's favorite color and blue as being a boy's favorite color, but it turns out that everyone loves blue and every hates orange.

Lots of other interesting tidbits about people's color preferences are found in this Techi article which I discovered through another "orange" blog: How About Orange.

Crazy Taxi Medallions

I took cab to LaGuardia once with a Russian immigrant cabbie who proceeded to tell me all about his life here in America, beginning with his gradual purchase of 8 taxi medallions over the span of 30 years and ending with sending his daughter to law school last year.  It was quite the inspiring story.  Then, as I began to crunch the numbers he was giving me, I realized that this cabbie had a higher net worth than 8 of my lawyer friends put together.  Each New York taxi medallion was worth approximately $641,000 and since he's only required to actually drive the taxis part time, he could rent out the remainder of his medallions and make rental income.  According to this USA Today article from 2009, New York taxi medallions have out performed every index imaginable.  Oh the American dream...at least for those fortunate enough to own a medallion...there's much to be said for the plight of those who scramble to lease a medallion and then must work to make enough to cover rent, but today, I'm all about optimism so I'll just leave it at that.

ATE live videos

Airborne Toxic Event is releasing new music later this month.  Until then they're giving us a preview with these live videos. I've always thought ATE was better live than on record, so these are quite a treat. 

Happy Friday?

Tallest Man On Earth - The Dreamer

This is not my video, but I was at this show. I love this song: it quells the angst. 

StayFocused Chrome Extension

I came across this on Lifehacker, but basically, you install this extension in Chrome and it blocks distracting websites once you've reached a time limit.  You can customize which website become blocked and after how long.  Not very useful now that I'm a working adult (because we all know we'd go crazy at work if we couldn't distract ourselves with blogs, youtube etc), but I could definitely have used this when I was a student.

Wikipedia-ing New York

I never think to Wikipedia (verb) things that are familiar, like New York City.  Tonight, while waiting for someone to get back to me at work, I did.  Most of it is what you'd expect.  New York is the most densely populated city in America, 800 languages are spoken in New York, there are five boroughs in New York etc.  Nothing too spectacular, until...about a quarter of the way down there is a really really long panoramic picuture of Manhattan.  I've tried to save the picture to put on Dos Orange but this is how small it has to shrink in order to fit: 



Click to see the full picture.

Awesome things still happening in Wisconsin

This video is remarkable. Wisconsin Republicans barrel through committee a revised union-busting bill over the Democrats claim of illegality of procedure. I find these procedural fights in legislatures incredibly interesting and this one is up there with the best, complete with folksy Midwestern accents.  

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After weeks of insisting the union provisions were there for fiscal reasons - although evidence shows the existence of collective bargaining rights has no fiscal impact whatsoever, and after having virtually no public support for these provisions, the Republicans decided to agree with the rest of us that stripping collective-bargaining was a non-fiscal issue. Therefore, they pulled all the union-busting provisions into one bill and voted on it within minutes. Problem is a) they violated Wisconsin's open meetings laws and b) there are those unsure whether this bill had some fiscal provisions -- for example the benefit changes.  If the bill does have fiscal implications, they do need a quorum and the vote was improper. So it looks like this is going to court, which bodes well for  JoAnne Kloppenburg, a Dem (?) running for Supreme Court Justice, April 5th. She's running against the incumbent.  This may be a good test of whether there is truly enough electoral support for successful recalling of the eligible Republican senators. Ah, democracy.

Of course, this could all just be a trick to get the senate Democrats to come back to the state: so far it seems they're staying firm, somewhere in Chicago, knowing that if they return before this bill is signed into law they can get locked into the state capital and forced to vote. Ah, democracy.

New Music Alert! An Horse

Few things make long monotonous stressful days at work better than discovering a new little band.  This week, for me, it's the Aussie duo An Horse.  I "picked up" (downloaded from amazon) their 2009 LP Rearrange Beds today. My favorite song off that album after the jump, but below is a preview of their new album, Walls, that sounds like it's going to be awesome and drops April 11. 

I'm excited, so excited that I bought a ticket to see them at the Knitting Factory in April. The most important thing about the video above, however, is that a) they use my tuner and b) she has one version of my dream guitar -- an orange strat w/ racing stripes. Few things make long monotonous stressful days at the office better than watching people with fun interesting cool jobs.

A Cool.gif

When I was a kid, I was a huge web-dork. I spent inordinate amounts of time with html and java-script. But you need something cool to put within all that code, so I was soon spending inordinate amounts of time with Paintshop Pro and its accompanying .gif creator. I don't know how many hours up through college I spent creating .gifs, but I was awesome at it.  Remember, in the late 1990's, before we had easy to stream video (you know, before I could watch downtown Cairo live on my phone while on a sidewalk in Manhattan) .gifs were an effing big deal. It's an image! It moves! Now .gifs are like a pair of chucks or Vans: sure, we have the technology for better, more comfortable shoes, but the old-skool shoes are just so cool. .Gifs are just so cool.  Kinda as cool as this high-five:

Now in 2011 to create a .gif you go to a website, enter the youtube link, and press Create .gif. Not as exciting a process, but just as exciting a result.

Tinashé: Mbira version of "Zambezi"

I once had to make a Mbira (aka Kalimba) for Science Olympiad.  For an event called the "Sound of Music."  Yes, I am a nerd.  Unlike this guy, I was never very good.  AIK showed me this video over the weekend and we watched it a few times while we drank before going out.  Weird pre-game music, I know, but it's a pretty awesome song. 

 

Everyone and their mom is in this video.

...Well, not everyone, but a lot of great random musicians are acting goofy in the very fun new Sara Bareilles video for the song Uncharted.  It's refreshing to see a well-made low-tech video, and here's definitely a case where the video makes the song. Watch below, because when else will you see Pharrell and Sara Quin battle for most adorable in the same video:

I don't really know anything about this Bareilles musician and from the sound of  it I could write her off as radio friendly singer-songwriterzzzzzz...., but there's just 4 too many cool folks (Pharrell Williams, Tegan, Sara, Ben Folds) who agreed to be in this video to not give her more of a chance. Will do so.

Heartfelt acoustic music Part III? I must tired all the time.

If you're wondering, I'm listening to Our War by Lovedrug right now.  Lovedrug is a band I saw open for some other band at The MidEast in Cambridge. That venue will forever be one of my favorites because it's quality and I saw one of my top 3 best shows of my life there (Brand New and fans all screaming their little hearts outs). But I digress, Lovedrug impressed me live largely to the distinctive and just-rough-enough vocals, and though I didn't feel their album at the time, they are in the process of recording a new album. They've released a string of EPs over the past couple months to raise money and certain songs just kill it (others I don't love as much), but anyway, stream it below. You can stream the whole EP here.

After the jump, one of my favorite new songs of theirs live. 

Awww... crap!

This is what happens when you don't go to that small show at Mercury Lounge because you're "too tired."   Sara Quin (of the Tegan and ... fame) produced FENCES' new s/t album, which I like much ($5!!). Fences is very good indie heartfelt non-whiny/sleep-inducing acoustic dude-with-a-guitar music.

So, I had planned to go to the show because I suspected -- as you can see from the videos -- he's even better live.  Turns out Sara Quin was there -- she duets on the song My Girl The Horse --  as you can also see from the videos.  Note - Sara Quin is my Beiber, as the kids say. Post on this later. So I could have seen them perform together live on a small stage in NYC; but instead I decided to stay home and be lame on my couch. Lesson learned: in NYC you will always pay for being lame. I apologize to you all that instead of Sara Quin and Fences photos, I have a re-blog.


Fences: My Girl The Horse (feat. Sara Quin) from shoottheplayer.com on Vimeo.


Fences: Sadie (A Shoot The Player Film) from shoottheplayer.com on Vimeo.

SOURCE

New Music Alert: RAA

The new album from Rural Alberta Advantage came out today!  DEPARTING is a great follow-up to the amazingly steller, Hometowns (2009).  There's something about Canadians that allow them to make energetic and moving indie rock, without the pretension. RAA is marked by an acoustic guitar being propelled forward by strong drums and growling melodic vocals singing of heart ache and winter. Here's the single off the new album; it's called Stamp:

They are playing the Bowery Ballroom on March 10th (which I am attending so stay tuned for iPhone photos from the show) and Knitting Factory, Brooklyn March 12th.  After the jump, my favorite track off the 2009 album: