i'm done now...

i'm now going to bring my aspirations and expectations down to the correct level.



thanks to one of my favorite music bloggers, mystery and misery, i have discovered the band The Potomac Accord, y me gusta mucho. here is how m&m describes the music (he does a fantastic job of it):

"The Potomac Accord create beautiful piano driven songs (along with a bass, violin, and percussion) that fall into the same realm of Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor, but with emo-esque vocals (Slint and Cursive if you will). Their music is dark, melancholic, powerful, and full of passion (post-rock slo-core)."

here are some songs:
(from In One Hundred Years the Prize Will be Forgotten)
- a quiet white

(from Silver Line on a Black Sea )
- are they careless
- maya
- to portland, maine




here is some other music from First Flight Records...

emery reel:
- his hammer is my axe

the floating city:
- kansas city
- where are you

anamude:
- urban comfort #2

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the best post ever...

so my wife told me to write a post and title it "the best post ever" and then actually write the best post ever ... what kind of pressure is that? i mean, come on, the best post ever? do i find the most intense emotional music that will change my life and yours forever so that you will actually never read this blog again because you have finally reached a musical epiphany and no longer feel the need to explore or encounter new music of any kind... or do i write some interminable diatribe that lays bare the fabric of our society with cutting insight and scathing irony mixed with subtle, yet undeniable, humor while exposing my soul in an endearing and tragic manner.

i have no idea what any of that meant and i have now buckled under the weight of it all....
oh, the tortured life of a blogger.

i'm so emo right now... or am i

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dragonfly in the sky...

i'm pretty sure the reading rainbow song was "butterfly in the sky" but i have adapted the lyrics for my needs...

my best friend, and author of the blog chinese food or pizza?, is now the head chef of the restaurant Dragonfly in Tamarindo, Costa Rica...

i've never been so proud... *tear*

ironically though, he will be serving neither chinese food nor pizza...

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scary good...

these are things that are good, but sometimes in a scary way...

- Tiger Woods / Phil Ivey ... you know the first name but you have probably never heard the second. Ivey is considered the Tiger Woods of poker, mainly because he is young, black, and scary good at what he does. there is a great quote about this parallel that I read in an article by ESPN.com Poker Analyst Steve Rosenbloom:

"Take Tiger in the sand. We see his situation, we watch him consider his options, we wait for something magical. Now take Ivey with pocket 5's in the small blind. Same thing."

Much like Tiger, Ivey is approaching the record books with alarming speed. Tiger has hit 10 majors at a younger age than Nicklaus did looking to equal the 18 major feat at a younger age than his idol, and so Ivey has reached his fourth WSOP bracelet on track to hit the record 10 WSOP bracelets at a much younger age than poker legend Doyle Brunson. According to Phil Gordon, if Ivey keeps playing at this level he will get his 10th WSOP bracelet within the next 4 years. To put that into perspective, Doyle Brunson just won his 10th bracelet at the age of 73...Ivey is only 28.

- there is a great, nay magnificent, scream from 1:25 - 1:30 in Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast". the scream is a little Roger Daltry-ish (listen to "Won't Get Fooled Again) but that doesn't make it any less brilliant. the song is good but scary lyrically, "sacrifice is going on tonight"....come on *shudder*.

still here...

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...and by request

here are some tracks i was told to check out and some that i wasn't...

sufjan stevens - the lord god-bird
the arcade fire - no cars go
the go! team
- huddle formation
- bottle rocket (this song is awesome!!)
the salty pirates
- the alien invasion
- i lost my virginity to the voice of Per Gessle
- my academic beard
joanna newsom
- peach, plum, pear
- what we have known
- bridges and balloons (cover by the decemberists)
elefant - now that i miss her
sigur ros - staralfur

that's all for now but i'm still here...

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...and i'm back in the game

it has been a long time since i have posted anything or actually even read a music blog and while i don't usually like to make excuses for things, i feel that there are some decent reasons to explain what has taken up so much of my free time lately.

1. we moved... from Denver to Atlanta about 3 months ago. I have a new job which is way better than the old job. this is where i work now...but i don't have a house yet, however thanks to my gracious in-laws, i do have a roof over my head.

2. i got caught up in the whole texas hold 'em phenomena that is sweeping the country, and i am still caught up in it. i played in a tournament last night and i may play again tonight. at the junction of the new poker craze and the increasing relevance of the blog craze comes the obvious "poker blog". i now spend some of the time i used to spend reading music blogs reading about poker instead, i need to learn to balance this out better. this is my favorite and this is also good. in my opinion, poker blogs got a shot in the arm during the recently completed World Series of Poker in Vegas because ESPN won't be showing the $10,000 buy-in NL "main" event until oct.-nov. and die-hard fans didn't want to wait until then to hear about the action, so the almost play by play blogging of media types at the event provided an insight into what i'm sure we will all still watch on tv in a few months.

3. playing poker online can be fun and is usually free, i play here and here and am thinking about going here because the Full Tilt team is sick.

4. i got burned out... i kept trying to find new and better music that no one had ever heard of ever, so i was spending a lot of time downloading and streaming trying to find the next big thing for me....i just got bored of listening to a lot of mediocre music and trying to be excited about it. sure, i found some good stuff but i found a lot of really bad stuff as well. i've decided to slow it down a little and ease back into things and post music that appeals to me, not just continuing to try and be the guy who "heard it first" or "posted it first" in this case.

some bands e-mailed me their mp3's to post, so i will do so. some of these i have heard great things about, some nothing at all....and i appreciate that i was probably just the recipient of a mass marketing tool but i appreciate the effort to sway the blogging world:

The Hypertonics - these guys have shunned record labels and the usual melee of shopping an album around and have just posted their entire album on their site....and it's good.

Soft
- droppin'
- all that you're shown
- you make me wanna die
- lucky jam

that is all for now, hopefully this will last.

(does anyone enjoy that i write this blog as if people read it...?)

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