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Ahoy mateys, Google Chrome and Seeqpod MobileGot home yesterday from a week in Chuckville for the Gov Summit on Aging. It's a long week of long days, but this year went pretty smoothly, I think, which is a great relief. It takes a village, people, and I don't mean dudes dressed like indians and cops. Only when a lot of dedicated people do a million little and big things can a conference really go well for the participants, and that's what happened for this one. I particularly dig the keynote Dr. Gene Cohen about the special enhanced creative capacity of the aging brain. Can't wait to get old and enter my liberation phase of development! Snoogans!
Listening to: Shyngyr-Shyngyr, Tuvan folksong Reading: Freakonomics Weather: sublime, 65, mostly sunny, light breeze
Cool surprise at the Summit for me, I had the great pleasure of running into a bassplayer whom I haven't seen in years, Lynn from Beyond Borders. I didn't even recognize him at first, you know how it is when you see people out of context. He was carrying his precious and beautiful month old grandson, so of course I had to first dig that new baby smell before turning my attention to my bassplaying amigo.
Friday was International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and avast ye scurvy bilge rats, I sailed my four-wheeled ship north to Independence with the wind at my back and the waning summer sun portside.
OK, have you clicked to listen to Shyngyr Shyngyr in the flash player above yet? This is folkmusic from Tuva, the geographic center of Asia. It's a little nation that was controlled by the Mongols for 500 years, then the Chinese for 200, annexed by Russia and Soviets in the 20th century. These are cats who wear gorgeous colorful clothes, live nomadically in yurts, play funky triangular guitars, drink yak milk, and know how to freakin party. This is the homeland of those radical multitone throat singers. I'm kinda into that stuff, which shares characteristics with the vocal styles of Robert Plant, David Lee Roth, and other electric rockers of that era. This particular tune, however, isn't about the throatsinging. To me is sounds like it could be Appalachian music, except for the language. Folk music the world round has amazing commonalities, doesn't it?
So have you downloaded and tried the sexy new browser by Google called Chrome? It appears to me to be quite fast, and also incorporates the functionality of some of the cool add-ins I use in Firefox like FastDial, for example. So far, thumbs up, though I am typing this in Firefox still, so I haven't actually made the permaswitch yet.
I discovered Seeqpod a while back, but didn't use it as much as HypeMachine. Both are ways to find mp3's hosted within blogs. Both could be used to steal music, but also could be used to find bloggers who write about particular artists and tracks you can find through search. It's usually harder to find old tunes, since people are less likely to be blogging about them, but every so often I think of an old tune that I had on vinyl or cassette that I'd like to get in mp3 and give it a search. I had only my iPAQ in Chucktown, but the hotel had free wifi which was sweet. My PDA has a very old IE mobile browser, so has somewhat limited functionality for surfing, for example no flash. Some websites just don't work for shit on it, but I thought I'd give Seeqpod a try for the 70's R&B ballad Always and Forever by Heatwave. There were a few other covers of it that were popular also, and those are the ones that tend to come up in searches. But low and behold Seeqpod totally hooked me up for the original, and the mobile version of the site makes downloading WAY easier than the desktop version.
Off to enjoy some fresh air this gorgeous saturday.
permalink posted by cat 11:33 AM
You are a major reason the
conference went so well this year.
Thank you for recruiting an all star team of presentors.
You are the woman!
Chuck Conroy
Have a groovy weekend, we all deserve one!