Musical Win

Winston is here. I'm already dreaming of him as a world class athlete or scholar. Yet, I'm also thinking that he may be destined for music because of the early music connections.

Although his name is Winston, we mostly call him Win. While he was in the womb, Nellie and I went to an Arcade Fire concert. He wasn't named after Win Butler - the lead singer of Arcade Fire - but I will neither confirm nor deny if he lept in the womb when Win Butler took the stage at the start of the concert. It did also happen to be the only concert we went to while she was pregnant.



Beck was also in the running for his name. In the end, I think it's better we went with Win and Arcade Fire. Beck is awesome and has incredible music, but if we named him Beck I would have felt compelled to play Beck songs for him as often as possible. That would be great once he was a little older and I could play any song in the Beck music library; but while he is young I would have wanted to play softer and mellower songs for him. Which pretty much leaves Sea Change as my only option. Sure, it's a great album, but he probably would have grown up extremely depressed and completely sour and pessimistic about love.

Not to say there isn't anything by Beck to play for him. I already played Sunday Morning for him the other day. One of these days I'll learn more lullabys so I can be the one to sing to him. In the meantime, this is as good as any and seemed to keep him happy.



One last musical note (pun intended), I realized just the other day that he was born at 12:51 p.m. I can't believe I didn't make the Strokes connection sooner. He could have come sooner or hung out in the hot tub a little longer before making his appearance. But he knew his daddy was a Strokes fan and would appreciate the 12:51 arrival. It's especially symbolic considering the Strokes recently announced their 2011 concert tour, their first tour since 2006, and also the year of Win's birth. No doubt our first father/son outing will be to their show.



I'm sure there are many more musical connections. I'll keep you updated as they are revealed.

From Bad to Worse

Bad:



And even worse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOBZmNVgOz0

Do you Moosico?

Moosico is my friend Dave's music blog. It's pretty great. Sadly, I don't frequent it as much as I should. Dave listens to a ton of music and sorts through all the junk out there to give you the good stuff. Granted, you might consider some of his good stuff junk, but most of it is great.

He recently put together a top 20 songs of 2010. It's a great list. In particular is the song Simple Graces by Delorean. Apparently they are a Basque group. Who doesn't love the Basque? No one. Everyone is a fan of the Basque. Such nice people. We should all move to Bilbao.

Anyways, this Delorean song is just great. I can't get it out of my head. So fun, so smooth and so Friday.

Enjoy and be sure to thank Dave.

The Neverending Story

From Lindsey.

Just fantastic on so many levels. It's gray and cloudy. You don't really know what's happening. Suddenly things start to clear. And boom. Pure 80's goodness. Maybe the best ever start to a music video.

Please enjoy. I don't know how you couldn't.

Merry Christmas.

Guilty Music Pleasures

Three posts in three days? This is some sort of record or something. Adam sent me a link this morning to a band called Low. I guess they are mellow and somewhat depressing sounding band. Perfect for any attorney, especially one working late at night. A great way to help get you through drafting exciting discovery responses.

Hearing about his new find made me think of my most recent music enjoyment. I have sort of been out of it lately with music, which is sad because I really do enjoy music. Dave has a great music blog that I don't frequent enough. The only time I really have to listen to music is while I'm driving and I usually spend that time listening to talk radio. Sometimes I'll switch to KROQ or KCRW while I'm driving to get my music fix, but it's mostly me and my sports friends just beating sports topics to death.

However, every once in awhile, about every three months or so, I get sick of the sports friends and I get in one of those moods where I'm driving and the only thing I need is not just music, but some catchy pop/rap/crap music. Must be the eighth grade Kent taking over for a few moments. But he took over the other day and I couldn't resist the urge to head over to KIIS FM and satisfy my needs. I'm not trying to put down catchy, cheesy pop music or KIIS FM or say that I'm above it. The music and station aren't bad per se, they have their time and place, it's just that I rarely find myself in that time or that place where the music is tolerated, much less appreciated. Probably because I don't find myself on a dance floor that much anymore. And because the station overplays the songs like they are getting paid for it. And the songs aren't bad, just not timeless classics that you can listen to over and over for 10 months. Well, 13 year-old Kent probably could have, but 30 year old Kent can't.

Anyways, this is a long way of saying that I heard this song the other day on KIIS and it's pretty awesome. I guess its from the movie Step Up 3D which came out this past summer, which means this song probably came out about that long ago as well. I'm just now hearing it for the first time. I've never seen a Step Up movie. Based upon the clips from the movie in the video I'm pretty sure that I would feel the same about the movies as I do KIIS FM where I mock it and wouldn't voluntarily see it but if somehow I did, I'm sure I would secretly love it because somewhere inside of you there is a part of you saying, "this is awesome."

Enjoy:




Really quick follow up, someone needs to set the next "trend" for rap music videos. Not getting much variation. Fancy cars, throwing money all over because "I gots more than I knows what to do with", sitting in the club with people around you during the verses of the song and standing with your arms waving and people dancing during the chorus. I'm not saying every video needs to be Thriller like quality, but surely there have to be other ideas out there.

E-Books

I was going to add this to yesterday's post, but then I thought I'd blog about it on a different day and make two posts. Tis the season right?

I'm basically just posting about this because I've had a couple conversations over the past few months about the emergence of e-books and the eventual decline of paper books.

I'm a big fan of paper books. I don't own a kindle or ipad...yet. I'm sure I will someday, and that day will probably be sooner than later. I'm not making any sort of Christmas hints or anything, but just a statement about how the e-readers are taking over. Which is kind of a bummer if you are like me and you like the paper books and you always thought it would be really cool to have a library in your home filled with hardback books. That dream can still happen of course. It's not like actual physical paper books will become extinct, but if you are denying the e-book takeover, it's time to accept defeat and change your Christmas list. Why? Because Google just announced they are joining the e-book marketplace:

Google Opens E-Books Store

And what do we know about Google? Google is life. They are our life and are slowly controlling our lives. And I'd be upset about that except that this is their blog, and they generally make my life easier and I like their products. So I have a hard time complaining about their eventual world domination.

The take over of e-books does make me wonder about libraries and what will become of them. Although libraries, at least on college campuses, are just glorified study halls. Sure they are filled with books, but few students actually read the books as most just use the library as a wall and barrier to block the public from their study flirt session with their significant other. I know this because I was once a college student, but also because I held the prestigious position of library security guard. Few people are actually in the library studying. Most are just socializing and getting their flirt on. What better way to impress a girl than pretend like you are smart and care about studying and invite her with you to the library for a nice quiet evening together?

I digress. Libraries will still exist but I think they will have to take on a new role because the actual books they offer will be used less and less. At first I thought that e-books would really only be available for "newer" books published within the last 10 years and everything in the future. Of course classics would be made available electronically, but there are a lot of books in the library and surely they all wouldn't be available electronically. Most of them are hardly read as it is, so why bother to make them available electronically? Because we are dealing with Google here. The company that wasn't satisfied just providing you with a map of where you were going. They felt it necessary to drive a car covered with cameras along every single street in the world in order to let you know exactly what your destination looks like. So just making only newer or classic books available electronically doesn't really fit with Google's identity. It's all or nothing. I give it 10 years before you see a sign that says: Welcome to the BYU Libarary, powered by Google.

The other big thing will be textbooks. Again, I like the paper books and I think it's easier to read paper books, but I'm also not part of the generation the grew up with the internet and cell phones in elementary school. That generation is used to reading and watching things on a screen, at least more so than I am. Plus, books are heavy. Who wants to lug a 600 page biology book around when you can just store it on your e-reader? I don't. I hate biology.

Anyways, I'm rambling. I know that this post isn't some sort of prophetic statement as people have been predicting the emergence of e-books for quite some time. It's just interesting to see it actually unfolding. And sad to realize that the library in my home dream is dying. Well, sad on one hand. On the other hand, it's actually a good thing. Maybe some day I'll have a home with so many extra bedrooms that I have to fill one with books because I can't come up with anything else to put in it; but in the meantime and while I'm living in a two-bedroom apartment where extra space is a rare commodity, I'm fine giving up the dream.

Oil Spill Video

I'm stealing this from my friend Jonathan who had it posted on his Google G-chat status. It's bloody brilliant. Enjoy: