baby’s first christmas tree! from Allison on Vimeo.

Lindsey and I went to the third night of this year’s Blip Festival in Brooklyn on Saturday night! If you don’t know what that is (I somehow didn’t), Blip Fest is “a four-day event showcasing nearly 40 musicians and visual artists occupying the international low-res cutting edge.” All of the artist make music in the “chipmusic” realm which is basically kids who grew up with Nintendo/Sega/Playstations and now make music using the hardware of their old ‘toys.’ They don’t just play games, record the sounds and remix them – they actually hack these systems and program/short-circuit them to make all sorts of bad-ass songs. All of this is accompanied by incredible live visuals projected behind the artist. Thick bass, sharp blips and bloops, decently prices booze, a few ravers and a ton of nerds made this a really enjoyable show.

Sulumi, the guy in the video, is from China and is apparently a big thing. I hadn’t heard of him until we saw him there but now I’m hooked! I bought the only album he has on iTunes but according to his Myspace page he’ll have a new album out soon. Also on the list of awesome artists I didn’t know about before: Bubblyfish (also awesome), Cow’p (okay, kind of a lot of the same thing), Nullsleep (looks like Scott Bowman, crazy intense music), and STU. STU (or Stu?) is from Sweden and is a total badass. He’s super chill, a little nerdy, pretty tall, very Swedish and has fantastic beats, unfortunately I’ve had a hard time finding anything about him online. Though we met two European (maybe French?) people outside the place who loved Stu. I thought the woman was going to flash us but she was just drunk and trying to show us her Stu t-shirt.

(I’ll be posting pictures soon!)

Some of you have probably already heard about this, but for those that haven’t, on Friday members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America Local 1110 occupied the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago. The decision to take over the factory was made after managers announced that the factory would be closed on three days notice and that workers would not be receiving severance or vacation pay as mandated by law. UE workers are calling on Bank of America, Republic’s creditors, to stop sitting on the $25 billion it received in the recent government bail-out plan and support a viable company or at least allow Republic to fulfill its obligations to workers.

As the occupation begins its fourth day, our support is needed to make sure that workers can keep up the fight until their needs are met. Messages of support are great and, I can say from experience, help morale more than you might expect, but what these workers really need is financial support. I know that none of us are rolling in dough, but any amount will help out. If you really can’t spare the extra cash, at least send them a note letting them know that you support them. And now, by the power of html (which Joel will probably have to fix) (joel: got it!) a Link! All the stuff you need is in the right sidebar.

I don’t know if any of you guys have heard this girl’s stuff, but I have become kind of obsessed. Her name is Lady Gaga and she is 22! (A baby!) Anyways, I saw this video on stylsightings a few days ago and clicked on if for a whim, and now I’m hooked. This song is kind of dance-y and fun (so joel will like it), but she’s a great solo, powerful girl singer (which Katie will like) and plus she’s ADORABLE (so Emma will definitely like her). So I thought I would post her here and see what you all think.

Lady Gaga – Pokerface

I’m in Michigan. I was just going to be here for Thanksgiving, but I’m staying a bit longer. I don’t have a job, so… WHO CARES. A lot of things have changed since last time I was home, which was a year ago. My parents remodeled my room a bit, made it less like a 5th graders room. Hardwood floors and a fancy carpet are accompanying a fresh coat of blue paint and framed art on the walls. The basement is now equipped with a Samsung 50″ plasma screen TV (only 720p, LAME), a blueray player, and a surround sound system. Possibly a mid-life crisis is in the works. We also have a new fence around our backyard, and a newly paved driveway. My dad and uncles also finally convinced my grandpa to move out of his house. Here’s why:

The house my dad grew up in… from billbill on Vimeo.
You can probably stop watching once the music stops. This still needs to be edited down a bit. Also, sorry my camera is bad.

I snuck in today (the city owns it now) by myself. Luckily, someone had broken in recently, so one of the doors was open. Throughout the video I was screaming “HELLO?” and “If anyone is here, I’m just taking pictures!”. Also, “Feel free to stay as long as you like!” and “I’m almost done!” Needless to say it was rather scary, even if it was daytime. My dad grew up here, and he later moved in to the apartment upstairs when he and my mom got married about 30 years ago. It was unbelievable. My family’s past was collapsing and dissolving on itself. Pictures here. I wish Allison and her medium format camera were with me at the time. I’m sure there would have been much better documentation. Allison, if you want to fly over in the next few days, just give me a call.

As you may know, the charming William Ferenc and myself made a pilgrimage across the lake to our home state of Michigan. Doing this by plane, Mr. Ferenc and myself found ourselves a tad bored during the “no personal electronics” segment of the trip. Well, all this changed once we got our little mitts upon SkyMall. I know, I know, you are sitting on your computer reading this post thinking to yourself “Oh how I wish I had experienced Skymall with Emma and Bill. But alas, that is impossible.”

WELL JUST WAIT, MY FRIEND. IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Bill and I hand picked our favorite SkyMall finds, and now I am bringing them to you. It’ll be just like you’re sitting next to us on Flight 741! So, without any further ado, here we go. (you’ll have to excuse the quality of the scans, our scanner does not like things that aren’t lineart)
(more…)

It’s almost lunch time, and you know what that means! THAT’S WHEN I LOOK AT FOOD BLOGS!!!!? On Serious Eats, I found a good comic about eating at a fancy restaurant:

(Click on it! It’s much longer than three panels.)

Now I realize how un-fancy all of the restaurants I previously thought were fancy… are. That is a difficult sentence. ANYWAY, I really want to go to a REAL fancy restaurant now.