Where you can find me now...

Just go to notanairplane.com.

The Changing World of Media

It is not really news when I mention the Media Revolution that has been happening for years now. The digital takeover as I am now calling it - its everywhere, and its been everywhere for some time. Unless you still have shelves of CDs and a portable CD player, I think you know what I am talking about.

Its been on my mind lately though, because I never thought about it in terms of Movies. I have been a Netflix user for awhile, and really what clinched my Netflix subscription over things like Blockbuster, etc, was the "Play Now" feature that Netflix introduced right before I joined. Granted the library is still lacking compared to the actually DVD library, but I make due when I just can't wait for that next DVD.

My point is I never really thought about digitizing my movie collection. Just last week I actually looked into doing it for the first time. Quite frankly I am baffled as to why it is so difficult. Why was it so easy for me to take my existing CD collection, place them into my computer's CD drive, and VIOLA! - instance digital music collection. Why is it that iTunes, and other Media Player software don't allow this with DVDs? I know there are all sorts of ways of doing it, but in my research, it seems like much more work.

I know there are always exceptions to the rule, but if I was able to burn my DVDs into my digital media collection much easier, would it stop me from going to the Movies? Never. Seeing a good movie in the theatre could be the movie equivalent of listening to a good record on Vinyl (I suppose its different in a sense of digital movies get crisper/more high def/ over time where as music gets more compressed with lower sampling rates over time...) in a sense that I get to eat candy doing both.

Of course if I could rip DVDs I would take full advantage of my Netflix account and rip everything I even remotely enjoyed...but if there was a service that sent me three new albums at a time for a small monthly fee, Id take full advantage of that system too.

I don't really know what the point of my post was here. I started out with the mindset of the differences between the digitizing of movies when compared to the digitizing of music. The high-def movie, compressed music world versus the vhs, vinyl world.

But apparently I must have gotten sidetracked. All I really wanted to do was rip "The Monster Squad" to my computer so I could have something to watch at work (without having to lug that huge DVD around with me).

Jailbreaking Iphone, The South Park App

Since the purchase of my iPhone 3G and the discovery of all the pointless and miscellaneous apps for killing time (i.e. Pianist, Lightsabre, etc.), I certainly have been guilty of my share of downloads. Who knew that playing the Synth on your phone could be so fun and so annoying to everyone else at the same time? Apple thats who.

I remember reading on The Iphone Blog about a South Park app and how it wasn't going to be approved by Apple and the App Store because of its "offensive" content. My first reaction was something along the lines of, "oh well, what is a South Park app going to do anyways?" I continued to read on and discovered that the South Park app wasnt going to let itself die and would be available through Jailbreaking. Fight the power.

Then I jailbroke, (with some hesitation at first, but I couldnt be happier) not because of this reason, but coincidentally soon after reading about this.

Perusing the Cydia Third Party App Store I stumbled upon the South Park app for free and decided to give it a quick download to see what it was all about. After spending approximately 5 seconds with the app loaded, I discovered that you can watch EVERY single episode of South Park Right from inside this application. Should I not be as impressed about this as I am?

If TV shows are going this far into the mobile world, I have to tell you that I am pretty impressed/excited. I have even seen some "Family Guy" and "American Dad" apps around Cydia, but since those shows do certainly suck, I didnt even stop in to see what they were all about.

But imagine a world where all your favorite TV shows are catalogued right into your phone? And using the TVout App, and/or maybe some miscellaneous chords and adaptors, you can just plug em into your fancy pants TV at home.

If I could watch every Simpsons episode while pooping, would I ever stop pooping? These are questions I may not be prepared to answer.

Control

I'm sorry that you move
Differently when you
Can't believe you're moving
Can't believe you're moving

And maybe I can show
The whole world what I've known
And what's missing when you're doing
What is missing when you're doing so

Look for love
After awhile
You will never find it here
Maybe I can see you
In another year
Look for me
I'll look for you
And I will disappear
I will never last at all
No I will never last at all
Right here

And I can't make a difference
If you won't take the time to listen
And you will somehow try to go
But I won't forget your ghost
Or your heart lost in that town you love the most
And I will somehow try to grow
For the sake of nothing
Nothing but control
For the sake of nothing

-- Post From My iPhone

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

-- Post From My iPhone

Fewer Moving Parts

I had the opportunity to be one of about forty people to attend the David Bazan house show in Berkeley last week. It was an amazing experience.

The mere concept of touring on small house shows with no PA is inspiring itself. When combined with Bazan's banter about his records, movies, songwriting, and more, you've got a struggling songwriters dream show.

I left that night feeling more and more in love with the idea of writing and singing about things I may or may not know about to whomever decides they would like to listen.

I look forward to David Bazan's visit to Modesto.

(For some reason my picture won't post - I'll try again later.)

-- Post From My iPhone

Two Sets of Strings

I bought this pretty little Washburn almost 6 years ago when I was living in Montana. I only paid a couple hundred bucks for it when a friend of mine wanted to sell it.

It then ended up at my pal Dwight's house near Fort Worth, Texas when it wouldn't fit in my car on my road trip to California. It's been there for almost 3 years.

And recently, it ended up in my hands again.

I had to wipe a layer of dust off the whole thing, but after some thought I took it to my pal Al over at ARC Guitars. I had him put in an Active Element from LR Baggs as well as restring and set up the neck. I got it back today and it sounds pretty good for such a low end guitar.

So I'm going to mess around with it. Bring it to practices and maybe even some solo gigs. Who knows, I just might enjoy having that extra octave.

-- Post From My iPhone

The Reason Anyones Veins Include Sediments

I just watched Travis Vick play last night at Luigi's in Sacramento.

I always enjoy watching him play.

His guitar playing still catches me off guard and I always leave his sets haunted by at least one of his well delivered lines. And for some reason I thought a lot about goats.

In the end I think that is what is important.

--Post From My iPhone