While I can say with confidence that my headphone time has been dominated by archive episodes of WNYC’s outstanding RadioLab podcast, 2010’s new crop of music has already managed to wedge quite a few actual albums into my brain. The following have been particularly enjoyable, each with a brief blurb no longer than 140 characters. There are certainly more, but these have been particularly interesting to me.
Beach House - Teen Dream
Beach House’s dreamy pop arrangements and nonchalant, effortless delivery have been a staple of my music world. Teen Dream does not disappoint.
Vampire Weekend - Contra
I don’t care what anyone says, this band writes some of the catchiest, most satisfying songs I’ve heard. Clearly a gifted group of musicians.
Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Added to category bands-I-avoided-because-their-name-is-awful-but-now-enjoy-unapologetically.
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
Fine, it just came out today and I’m only halfway through. Doesn’t matter. It’s brilliant and beautiful just as you’d expect.
About 5 months ago, I finally met one of my post-college goals: become car-free. To be fair, some big life changes gave me a huge kick-start, but I’d been hoping to make the change anyway. I count it as a win.
Packing up the old office. One of my civic's last hauls.
The transition wasn’t too difficult since I’d been riding bikes or trains for most trips anyway, but the car was always there for big loads. Consequently, post-car, I found myself on www.xtracycle.com oggling bolt-on cargo bike parts. A good friend and postmundane contributor has been riding an xtracycle kit in one form or another for a couple of years now and it’s always seemed like a simple and elegant solution to hauling lots of stuff on a bike. It just so happened that he’d recently purchased Surly bikes’ dedicated xtracycle rig, the Big Dummy, recently and had a spare bolt-on kit sitting around. Like the good bike nerds we are, Matt and I started figuring out a way to get his kit on one of my frames. Long story short, we couldn’t find a simple way around some compatibility issues and I ended up springing for a Big Dummy frameset at a closeout price.
Here’s the final build serving as a workbench while Matt fixes a flat.
"It's a FLAT!"
I’ve been riding my Big Dummy for a few months now and I have to say, it’s really quite wonderful. The short review is that the ride is surprisingly responsive and stiff despite the rig’s extra length. As for hauling, the xtracycle system is pretty top-notch. It’s easy to use, big enough for pretty much any load and there are tons of pre-fab and DIY ways to slap neat little add-ons onto the frame. It’s clear that Surly and xtracycle put a ton of time and though into the Big Dummy system. The frame is so solid, I’d be confident taking it out on a (non-twisty) single track. I certainly wouldn’t be the first to put it through such a rigorous test. That being said, there are a couple of minor drawbacks. It’s tricky getting the thing in and out of my second-floor apartment, the rear end can get kind of noodly depending on how you load it (see details after the fold), and there are a couple of special needs when it comes to building such a big rig. None of the downsides were really unexpected, nor are they notable enough to diminish the Dummy’s value, but still some things to keep in mind.
The rest of this post is a more detailed review and some build notes (read: unbridled nerding-out), so make the jump if you’re into that kind of thing. I’m looking forward to putting in a lot more miles and, let’s face it, fiddling with the componentry, as soon as Chicago hits spring.
Oh hi, friends. After decades on hiatus and months sans shaving, I’ve discovered something to talk about.
Surely you see my point.
Update - Hi-res sticky note pics!
A glossy white wall in the CCCKC cave and multicolor sticky notes did the trick.
The Original Wall
Alas, the man made me paint over it!
A mythical island where developers code what they feel, without the constrain of use cases or UI specifications.
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I got a new mic: The Snowball. It’s pretty slick.
There I Fixed It: pop filter
Link - Audio hosted on archive.org