(That reminds me: Feeling nostalgic for the days of cassette tapes? Watch the award-winning short film Mixtape by Luke Snellin. I love the moment where the kid exits his house and the Heart song kicks in. Brilliant.)

This month I evaluated various free online services for streaming music and creating social playlists. I was looking for a simple, legal way to share and discover music through online mixes. Most sites I looked at were recommendation-based radio (like Pandora and Last.fm), which was not what I wanted.

(If you want to do your own research on mixtape sites, these two articles are good starting points for further exploration: “8 Best Ways to Share ‘Mix Tapes’” (October 26, 2009) and “Social Music: Top 5 Sites to Build a Playlist” (February 9, 2009). Also see: Quarkbase.)

Anyway, after all that searching, my favorite service for creating and sharing personal mixes is 8tracks. And this weekend I got a chance to upload some MP3s to my new 8tracks account. I created three mixes of 12 songs each. The track listings are below. Most songs were released in 2008 or 2009.

What I wrote in my 8tracks profile is true: “Music is how I remember time.” Have a listen.

12 Memories: Autumn 2009
Twelve tracks including music by Camera Obscura, The Twilight Sad and Zola Jesus. Some songs I’ve been listening to since the weather turned.

1. Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over
2. The Duke Spirit – This Ship Was Built to Last
3. Holopaw – Abraham Lincoln
4. Fruit Bats – When U Love Somebody
5. Ben Folds – You Don’t Know Me (Feat. Regina Spektor)
6. Meiko – Boys with Girlfriends
7. Camera Obscura – Away with Murder
8. Zola Jesus – Sink The Dynasty
9. Gina Young – The Boy on the Bus
10. Bye Bye Bicycle – Footsteps (Pt. II)
11. Noah and the Whale – The First Day of Spring
12. Twilight Sad – At the Burnside

12 Memories: Sasquatch 2009
Twelve tracks including music by Crystal Castles, The Decemberists and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Studio songs from my favorite artists that played on Saturday at Sasquatch 2009 in Washington.

1. The Decemberists – The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid (Feat. Shara Worden)
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Down Boy
3. Crystal Castles – Courtship Dating
4. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead
5. Animal Collective – Fireworks
6. DeVotchKa – Head Honcho
7. Blind Pilot – Go On, Say It
8. Doves – Kingdom of Rust
9. M. Ward – Headed for a Fall
10. Crystal Castles – Untrust Us
11. The Decemberists – The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing (Feat. Shara Worden)
12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Runaway

(Read my blog post about last year’s Sasquatch! Music Festival.)

12 Memories: Bumbershoot 2009
Twelve tracks including music by Metric, Mirah and Say Hi. Studio songs from my favorite artists that played on Monday at Bumbershoot 2009 in Seattle.

1. Metric – Empty
2. Anomie Belle – How Can I Be Sure
3. Say Hi – Northwestern Girls
4. Mirah – The Garden
5. The Cave Singers – Dancing On Our Graves
6. Soulsavers – Revival
7. Modest Mouse – Little Motel
8. Franz Ferdinand – Die On The Floor
9. Mirah – Cold Cold Water (Electrosexual & Abberline)
10. Anomie Belle – Down
11. Say Hi – November Was White, December Was Grey
12. Metric – Help I’m Alive

(Read my blog post about last year’s Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival.)

I’m feeling sadness for Haiti (text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti) . . . and also for the following two “trivial” events because they represent and reflect larger cultural issues for me: City Lights Records closing and Conan O’Brien’s last show.

Conan O’Brien

Last night most of America tuned in to watch Conan O’Brien’s last show on NBC. Conan’s grateful closing monologue and “Free Bird” finale was a perfect ending to “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.” He went off the air playing his guitar with a huge grin on his face. That guy’s a class act.

Too bad “The Tonight Show” is dead now. Feels like a nail in the coffin. Is anyone really going to watch Leno again? Really? When we have the Internet, Letterman and so many other TV channels?

I was inspired by this quote from Conan’s closing monologue:

“Please don’t be cynical. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Dear Internet, Conan is today’s everyman. “I’m With Coco,” yes. (I’m also a little sad that the world is losing Conan’s Super Mario Bros. set backdrop.)

Where will Conan end up? On a late-night talk show on another network this September? On the Internet? For Conan O’Brien’s core audience (age 18-34), “the time slot is being replaced by a URL.” Read more: “Bye, NBC. Hello, Internet?”

City Lights Records

The end is near. I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania for over eight years now, but this is still important to me. My favorite independent record store, City Lights Records (off Penn State campus), is closing after 25 years. It’s sad, but not unexpected. City Lights is (was) State College’s last record store. I spent countless hours there. The closing of the store is the closing of happy memories that I won’t ever be able to revisit physically.

Read local coverage in The Daily Collegian and The Penn Stater (with video).

This comment by a user named Chuck really resonates with me: “I have mixed feelings towards the digital revolution. And it’s obviously here to stay. But there will always be a soft spot in my heart for those stores that influenced my listening habits.”

Late night comedy

Similarly, I have a soft spot for those creative comedians who were funny enough and cared deeply enough to influence my own sense of humor. “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” was a staple of my television consumption during high school and college. Though, during college, my TV watching started to approach zero. I also enjoyed David Letterman on both NBC and CBS for years, throughout my childhood and adolescence.

Even though I didn’t watch much of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” until January of this year, I am eager to know where Conan will land next and will probably tune in (if only on Hulu or similar). It’s strange how all this controversy between millionaire entertainers and network executives created such a genuine outpouring of support from the American public (working class). Strange that it even caused me to watch a network television show for the first time in a long while, if only for two weeks. But, I have to say, it was really fun, enjoyable television.

Michael Ian Black argues that Conan O’Brien has inexplicably become a modern representation of Norma Rae—someone who stands up and does the right thing in the face of corporate injustice. I think most of America feels that way. An unlikely hero, sure.

Digital revolution

As for independent music stores, if Penn State University and State College, PA can’t even manage to support one small basement record store anymore, then I can no longer deny that the halcyon days of rifling through stacks of obscure CDs (and vinyl, for some) and discovering new music via artwork and physical forms have ended. Those days ended years ago, of course. Plastic discs are a dying medium.

I can’t remember the last time I actually bought a music CD. I always hated how much physical space my huge music collection took up. But I also have such fondness for these days gone by. Each collected disc was potentially precious and meaningful. Albums mattered. Today I have more MP3s than I know what to do with. It’s hard to give any artist or album the proper amount of attention . . . and the gigabytes of MP3s continue to grow. The solution is to keep buying bigger hard drives on which to store all of this music and figure it out later.

I guess right now I’m feeling a little nostalgic for the illusion of simpler times. (And I’m starting to veer off topic.) I’m thinking of days before presidential administrations agreed with the RIAA and openly supported “file sharing damages of up to $150,000 per track.” The time we live in is certainly a transitional period for all media industries and entertainment products. But so long as independent artists are able to survive this cultural turmoil and continue to inspire our lives, we’ll come out all right. I could ramble some more about these issues, but instead maybe I’ll give one of these MP3 albums a second or third listen.

See you in September, Coco.

I enjoyed the variety of cool illustrations (and Mario wallpaper) by smashmethod on deviantART.

Take a look at these awesome Ghost in the Machine cassette tape portraits from iri5 on Flickr. There are also some portraits created from old film and reels.

The Periodic Table of Controllers (console and handheld) is nice too. More nostalgia.

Brackets

This year’s NCAA Tournament has been a disappointment for fans of underdogs (and those who try to be creative with their office-pool picks). In the Sweet 16, we have the following seeds remaining in the four regions: 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5 and 1-2-3-12 (and the lone 12-seed is tournament perennial Arizona). Boring! Here’s an article that analyzes this trend: “Powerful programs take over Sweet 16.” I hope the Final Four isn’t all 1-seeds again like last year or I will completely lose interest.

Speaking of brackets, here’s some ESPN malarkey for you: Who is the king of meats? And will the cereal champion be a sugary or healthy brand?

Forms of narcissism

I found this to be a useless but amusing connection between two misunderstood web applications: “Giant Typewriter in Second Life That Outputs to Twitter.”

Perhaps you would like to take Dr. Drew’s Narcissistic Personality Inventory, which is a 40-question survey that reflects your level of narcissism (composed of vanity, entitlement, exhibitionism, exploitiveness, authority, self-sufficiency and superiority). The average score for the general population is 15.3. The average score for celebrities is 17.8. The quiz is apparently from Dr. Drew’s new book, The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America. Good title. Hmm, who knew that celebrities are more in love with themselves than the average person?

A large asteroid just missed hitting the Earth last week. Watch video: Huge Meteor “Just Misses” Earth. We almost had another Tunguska.

Littlewood’s law is fascinating. It states that “one can be expected to observe one miraculous occurrence within the passing of every 35 consecutive days.” Hmm.

Try watching this YouTube video and then see the world bulge and ripple for a few moments: Natural Hallucinogen. Far out, man.

Movies

Here is an interesting cartoon segment: Saturday Morning Watchmen. I also recently watched The Mindscape of Alan Moore to kind of prepare for the Watchmen experience. I had high expectations going in and Watchmen turned out to be an excellent film. I think congratulations to Zack Snyder are in order.

Read all about the original 1978 story conference between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas in which Indiana Jones was created: The “Raiders” Story Conference. I liked this post because of the “10 Screenwriting Lessons” the author took away from the experience.

Nostalgia

Are you ready for video game sounds from the 1980s? Well, all right: Classic Arcade Sounds.

Remember when we used to use paper? My friend Warren sent this design article, which is like a love letter to paper and print techniques: “Choosing and Using Paper: Pushing the Boundaries.”

Happy Friday the 13th tomorrow!

Narwhal

Narwhal are interesting, with their helical tusks. Compare and contrast Weebl’s Stuff’s silly looping Narwhals animation to this report about the real-life sea creatures: “‘Arctic unicorns’ in icy display.”

Here are some other strange creatures: 25 Cool Obscure Animals, including vampire squid, tanuki and pistol shrimp.

Sesame Street censorship

I’m not sure there’s a funnier “censored” video than The Count Censored Edition, but Sesame Street Censored is pretty good too. Oh, the childhood memories.

Somewhat watchable/offensive cartoons

I can’t strongly recommend either of these shows (which were recently recommended to me by two different friends), but each episode only occupies 15 or 30 minutes of TV airtime, so it’s not a big commitment to see if you enjoy them.

The first 10 episodes (out of 13 total) of MTV’s short-lived “Clone High” (2002-03) are available via this YouTube playlist. The animated show featured high school-age genetic clones of famous historical figures. You can watch John F. Kennedy, Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Gandhi and others during their awkward years. I like the pink-haired Joan of Arc character.

You may also want to try watching the aggressively unentertaining “Xavier: Renegade Angel” (2007-09) on Adult Swim. The show has a bizarre, hateful goodness. Oxymoron! I can’t decide if the show is philosophical or anti-philosophical. It’s so purposely awful and fast-paced. At least the episodes are only 12 minutes each.

World of Warcraft: Leeroy Jenkins

I guess it’s time to revisit the WoW Leeroy Jenkins Internet phenomenon. Why? Because I found these video clips on YouTube and I can’t resist mashups: Leeroy Jenkins & 300 Spartans and Leeroy Jenkins Remix. Amusing.

Music videos

It’s not new, but I enjoyed the music video for “Stress” by Justice (French DJs), featuring a French gang. It’s very well directed by Romain Gavras. It has a similar feel to The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” video by Jonas Åkerlund (which was banned by MTV and has also been banned from YouTube).

(Side note: The Prodigy recently released a new album, Invaders Must Die. Check out their YouTube channel for new videos.)

Amusing detail: Gangsters in the “Stress” video kick the crap out of a car radio when one of Justice’s own pop-style songs starts playing. The song is “D.A.N.C.E.,” which has a pretty good music video in its own right (and technically interesting), though I don’t love it.

(You should also watch this French “Stress” parody video, which pokes fun at the original video.)

Here is another cool, technically interesting video: “Robot High School” by My Robot Friend.

Sports and technology

Don’t throw out that old VCR! Try this: VCR Hack!

In sports research news: “For Free Throws, 50 Years of Practice Is No Help.” In 50+ years, the free throw percentage in basketball (college and NBA) has remained unchanged.

NCAA March Madness starts soon!

Now, to help fill out this post, I will share some cool art and technology, with assistance from Gizmodo.

With the Academy Awards happening this weekend, you may want to to take a peek at the Oscar nominees for Short Films (Animated and Live Action).

The art piece “Reflection” is a very interesting mirrored ping pong table by Rirkrit Tiravanija, who is perhaps most famous for the self-sustaining environment and artistic community project “The Land” in Thailand.

On a similar note, the Watermarks Project is quite compelling. Artists in Bristol, England are superimposing watermarks onto city buildings, demonstrating high tide lines if Greenland’s ice cap melts. Will you be living underwater in the post-apocalypse?

Check out these SunCat rechargeable solar batteries. But do they actually charge in a reasonable amount of time?

This Frankenstein Steampunk PC mod is kind of awesome, if you’re into the wood/brass/valve steampunk aesthetic. And I rather enjoyed this example of “propaganda art” with a Motorola RAZR: Chairman Mao’s Little Red Cellphone.

Lastly, are you in nostalgic need of some retro gaming wallpaper to spice up your desktop? DesktopGaming and DeviantArt’s Orioto have some nice selections to choose from.