the Real Guitar Hero

The other day I stumbled upon Eric Clapton’s 24 Nights Concert DVD in the library’s musical/concert section. While I’ve always enjoyed his music, I’ve never listened to more than a dozen singles on the radio (most notably Tears in Heaven and Change the World). The DVD impressed me a lot since his live performances are definitely more brilliant than some studio recording. With the help of Spotify, I quickly found other Clapton hits, as well as various bands that he’s associated with from time to time, Cream, for example. From there, I found Martin Scorsese’s The Blues documentary, also with its series of CDs. Needless to say, I went on a Clapton binge for a while and sent spotify/youtube song links to everyone I knew. Before I forget, I decided to write down some notes in case my playlist goes away or if Spotify gets replaced by some other music device few years from now. Funny how the music/internet scene changes so quickly huh? When I look at this blog some years later, I would be surprised if any of the links are still active.

Check out the following from your favorite music/media source (or the library) for your listening pleasure.

-24 Nights (DVD/CD): live performances. for those of us who haven’t yet had the courage to splurge on concert tickets. p.s. he’s coming to NY. stubhub search shows 400 a pop…
-Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: Eric Clapton (CD)
-Riding with the King (CD): With B.B. King. ‘nuff said.
-Live Cream Volumn II: So many good songs. Once you hear this, your ears will bleed when switching to bad pop. Seriously.

More guitar greats:
rolling stone counts down greatest 100 guitarists. Clapton comes at number four.

I end this entry with a link to Youtube of 24 nights white room. of course, you can look for Cream’s white room, too. I just liked this a lot. Keep listening to the guitar part!

Phone Adventures

Earlier in 2010 I wrote about my first smart phone (entry). As my plan is nearly up and I had an opportunity to check out new devices, I took a spin in the Verizon store with J. Kudos to him for giving me good advise on my first smart phone. For the second smart phone, I didn’t end up going with either suggestion (HTC Rezound or Razor Maxx). With all the hype around 4G phones and huge screens, I was joking that before long we’ll all be carrying ipads and using them as phones. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Incredible but when it comes to new Droids, I just wasn’t all that impressed. So I ended up getting the iPhone 4S. No 4G, no droid, and no huge screens. It’s all good.

Since I’ve had the iPad for a while, I was already familiar with the setup of the iPhone (let’s face it, the phone/text part isn’t that hard). And since I had already started to clean up my google contacts (getting ready for switching from smart phone to smart phone), the contacts sync didn’t take too long either.

Things I miss from the droid:
-ringtones: I know this isn’t impossible but it just seems harder on an iPhone.
-music management: I’m awful with my iTunes music library and sync ever since I got my first iPod back in the days, so it’s been a lot of drag&drops with the SD card and amazon mp3 store with my droid. this led to my iPhone music library completely empty until i figure out the sync/org part. My iPhone has 1 song in it, from the free single of the week, no joke!
-contact search: while the iPhone contacts page does have a search bar at the top, it doesn’t allow for easy search using the numbers pad like droid. Fewer misdialing?
-better support for multiple calendars: I did find a few iPhone apps that take multiple google calendars but for now, I haven’t committed…
-different skins/themes. you know how you can do a “travel” skin with travel apps and “work” skin and “social” skin (at least with HTC)? yea, none of that…have to make do with the “folders” or limit my apps (which isn’t a bad thing).

Things I like from iphone:
-it’s the same as my ipad. ok, so this is not a plus if you haven’t used either the iphone or ipad before…
-imessage/text is much cooler.
-more fun apps that I’ve already had from my iPad. now I can take them on the go too!
-less confusing interface than some droid features.
-this is not really a big deal…but you do get better case selection for iPhones. I actually didn’t even bother with a case for the HTC. just went with a screen protector and that’s it. For the iPhone I got a red/black gradient hard rubber case with screen protector. May ditch the screen protector after a while since I’m not thrilled with it.
-Siri

IPad vs iPhone:
-facetime integration is better on the iphone
-Siri rocks. and apparently my English is not that bad (or they’ve improved it since rolling out)
-Zite looks 100 times better on iPad than iPhone. I suspect it’s the typography or the top bar showing the diff categories in the iphone version that makes it not as clean.
-I’m trying not to go overboard with copying the iPad apps since some apps are much better on ipad than iphone (i.e. Vevo or magazine apps).
-why is Muji Calendar free on ipad but not iphone? sigh.

Read my previous post on ipad reading apps.

DC Winter Fun

MLK weekend isn’t typically the weekend people leave town but I decided it was a needed trip after a “not-so-quiet” December. You know, the dead time when people take vacations and the people who go to work get to do organizational stuff and 2-hour lunches? Yea, definitely didn’t happen. Anyway, went to stay with T. for a weekend and thankfully the weather worked out.

I made a list of things to write about and given it’s been 2 weeks, I’ll just have to pick my battles… On with the highlights!

Pies and Music - We ate savory and sweet pies at Dangerously delicious pies [link]before heading to Rock n roll hotel (link, not an actual hotel) for a live show. The space would have been awesome for a summer night because there was a rooftop. Having already had my booze fix from the pie place, I just got some cider and water instead. I have to say I’m not that crazy with standing room only concerts… but the place was really cool and nothing beats live concerts. 

Travel Planning – One of the things T. and I. always complain about is we never get to hang out and plan fun stuff since we don’t see each other very often. Besides all the sightseeing and going out, we did use the weekend to work on a couple of fun projects. You may be aware of the travel list we’ve kept for a few years [link] and haven’t been put into action. Well, this year we’re planning our first trip – New Orleans Jazz Fest. note to self, need to start a new blog for our first trip. and no, it wasn’t not even on our original list (but it’s always undergoing revisions). Anyway, besides nailing down a weekend (which took forever, and we still haven’t gotten tickets/hotels…sigh), we also worked on our Amazing Race application just for fun. It’s not an easy process, after reading the fine print (and certifying that we’re ok with dangerous travelling), I kind of chickened out and don’t want to submit the app now. But it’s still kind of fun. I suppose the video will just have to wait for another day. Prior to the DC trip, I also signed up for Tripit.com just to try it out. It worked out pretty well and I was able to do my planning in the tool itself (including train tickets/times/concert listings/contact info).

MLK memorial on MLK day – I heard about the new MLK memorial [link] but didn’t realized I actually got to see it on MLK day. Many people showed up (local and visiting) to read through his quotes and take photos around the statue/tidal basin. I’m always on the lookout for good quotes. So here’s one:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.


Mt Vernon [link]
I’m just amazed that I’ve never visited Mt Vernon during my college years. The exhibits are well put together with tons of multi-media. The house/farm/surrounding are gorgeous without being overly elaborate, nice example of the First Family of the U.S.

The Rest:

Domestic travel list
Keeping travel resolution article [link]
Apples to apples [link]
Modern Family
Setting up OverDrive Media+Adobe eBooks
Cards against humanity
Making vegetable pasta
Family dinner
Corcoran Gallery
Potbelly
Corner Bakery
Liberty corner brunch
Reading on iPad . Eleven minutes. Triumph of cities
Charlie Haden and jazz
Train ride