This week 2 tapes found their way onto my ipod.  The first, a much anticipated K-OS effort The AnchorMan Mixtape  offers some new tracks and some left overs from Yes!    Cop it here…  http://tour-tv.com/mixtape/

Second was the More about Nothing tape from  Wale.  A follow up to  The Mixtape about Nothing, a Seinfeld inspired tape. track of the tape “the breakup song” if for nothing more than the classic George quotes that that serve as an intro. Cop it Here

Enjoy your free Legal downloads.

2009 BET Awards Cypher #3: Mos Def, Black Thought and Eminem. from Douglas Rogers on Vimeo.

The city is quiet. This city never ceases to amaze me that it can at once be entirely peaceful and rampantly busy. At this moment the city is only me and my faithful cat sitting on the deck beside me. The constant hum of the highway and random cars are the only things thats break the silence. Nights like these make me long for summers spent at a cottage by a lake. The cool breeze coming across the water and the waves gently lapping up on the rocky shore. Till that day comes, moments of nighttime peace and freeway oceans will have to do.

If I had to list my favorite things being in the thick of the crowd at a open air concert would be at the top. It would be followed by crappy tv movies on a Saturday morning and post indulgence poutin. But I digress. Last night I had the chance to catch K-os for the second time. This guy is apparently the best value in Canadian entertainment, as the total cost for both shows I’ve seen is $5. Yup $5. Despite this the man puts on a killer show with a great supporting band and DJ .  Kevin’s appreciation for the rock classics is obvious as he likes the half-way cover where he keeps the music but overlays the lyrics of his own song.  I’ve seen the Heaven Only Knows/Stairway to Heaven mashup and it’s very good .  Below it’s captured at a show in Waterloo.

The only thing that brought a little disappointment to the show was that despite playing at a World Choir festival. He did not appear with a choir at all which I think could have been very cool. More Pics below.

Ahh the iPad, harbinger of a whole new class of  connected devices and the death of the netbook.  I’ve been lucky enough to have one, thanks to the luck of the draw and the fine folks at Loudmo.

For about a month before it was widely available in Canada i was putting the Ipad though its paces using it everyday on the metro, at home, on flights and trying to figure out a business use for the thing.

First the Pros:

• It’s a Ipod..  so you get all the benefits and ease of use of that.
• The screen is beautiful.. it’s bright , crisp, and has good color
• It’s the best ebook reader ever. I was concerned that there would be eye fatigue  but it’s very easy on the eyes
• Battery Life is good even under normal use.  The folks at apple claim 10 hours but they also say my iphone will last 5 without recharging..  the difference is that this time they’re right.  I used Wifi surfing and watching movies on it on the flight back from San Fransisco and still had juice when we got to Montreal. Which brings me to my next point..
• It’s a perfect replacement for traveling with a laptop.

Cons:

• I don’t care what anyone says , typing on it is still cumbersome.  You’re not going to be doing a lot of heavy writing on it.  The angle of a holding the iPad just it’s condusive to long emails,(or blog posts).  And the virtual keyboard has no tab function.. which makes filling out forms online a bit time consuming.
• It’s useless outside.  Any fantasy you had of hanging out in the park playing with your Ipad.. well you better hope  for a cloudy day
• Not specific to the ipad, but why doesn’t apple support dvix, avi or xvid on their devices.. it would make my life a lot easier.
• Flash.. well yeah there’s that but honestly it’s not a huge issue.

Overall I would say this is a definite buy as a secondary/ casual internet device.  This isn’t a replacement for a desktop but it’s a nice to have around, and makes the morning commute a lot better.

]]> http://aaronfoley.com/2010/06/16/a-month-with-my-ipad/feed/ 1 http://aaronfoley.com/2010/05/25/from-the-folder-maybe-i-need-a-chuckwagon-and-a-case-of-smallpox/ http://aaronfoley.com/2010/05/25/from-the-folder-maybe-i-need-a-chuckwagon-and-a-case-of-smallpox/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 03:45:24 +0000 aaron http://aaronfoley.com/?p=806 You know when you read about the “wild west”  in the olden days; how it was a romantic adventure.  Danger around every corner from Indians,  bears and flash floods.  While people dying of starvation and small pox  didn’t necessarily bring out the candles and cheap wine, it was an adventure.  Over my journey of the last few days I’ve starting to wish that there was something other than endless road and small towns. Somehow sitting in a Boston Pizza in Peace River at 4 in the afternoon watching two drunk rednecks play vlts and discuss the virtues of one machine over the other doesn’t quite live up to the Louis L’Amour/ Jack London version of adventure.

I’m getting tired of driving and am looking forward to seeing home.  I’ve listened to every cd in the car at least twice,  sung along with the country stations ( I never knew how much that muddy water meant to me!!) and listened to podcasts on topics from the revitalizations of Mexico City courtesy of the BBC to the hiphop beats of “In Over Your Head”.  Sadly neither lasted the 30 hours I needed.  This is why I’m saying I need some more distractions to keep me awake.  I was briefly thinking of driving to the NWT today and just do the last bit tomorrow but instead I’ll live with the 8 hour drive tomorrow and get a decent sleep at the Twin Lakes campground   we stayed at on the way down.  To my lovely GF if your reading this next time I’m flying and you’re doing the drive.