The Skinny:
I really wish I had downloaded and saved all of these drop MP3’s back in 2005. As you can see from this re-tread, some of the mp3’s I used for this are no longer available. If anyone has copies of these that they could share please forward them on I will get them added to the list.
This drop was originally posted on June 16th, 2005 and based on the playlist it seems as though my mind was in many different places at the time. The outcome was a bit of a mess but I think I managed to get a couple of tracks in there that I can still enjoy.
The original post can be found here and the original Webjay.org playlist that supported it can be seen here through the Wayback machine.
Every July 3rd, Plymouth opens the beach for 4 hours, lights 6 or 7 HUGE bonfires, and let’s people drink and shoot off whatever fireworks they want to. Trust me…it is as nuts as it sounds. I recommend experiencing it for yourself next year. Click here to see some more shots of the Insanity.
The Skinny:
It’s always fun to go back and look at what I was doing 3 years ago on this site. I used to create these playlists every few weeks called akaRaff Radio Drops. It was a great way to find new music and share it with my friends. I used to use a site called Webjay.org to support the process, but unfortunately Yahoo bought them out, killed them, and in turn killed all of my old drops. So, I have decided to dig through my iTunes and start reposting my old playlists via some newer technology. I thank the Internet Archive and it’s Wayback Machine for keeping a snapshop of all of my playlists on file. Without them this would not be possible. So sit back and enjoy the 2005 sounds of akaRaff Radio Drop 01. It’s cool to see that some of the bands on this list have actually made it “big”. The Band of Horse’s ‘Our Swords’ was actually called ‘Base Song’ when I first posted this.
I have been getting a lot of traffic to this post which I originally wrote back in November of 2005. I thought I would share it again since it still works and is one of the most important digital music listening assets I have. Re-Enjoy.
For anyone who listens to mp3’s streamed from the web and has iTunes streaming them for you, then you have probably encountered Apple’s M3U playlist issue. An M3U playlist is one of the “standard” playlist formats used to easily group or share a list of audio file links and most mainstream audio players can read and play them. I say most because the folks at iTunes have definately missed the boat and have completely botched the playing of the M3U.
Normally if you download a M3U playlist to your computer, your default player (ie. WinAmp, Window Media Player) will load it and then proceed to play each song in order. Apple’s iTunes on the other hand loads the links to the songs into your library, creates a mess, plays the first song, and proceeds to stop. Up until now the only work around for this was to save the M3U to your desktop and drag it to iTunes as a playlist directly. But thanks the folks over at itweaks.com, this issue is no more.
Enter M3U2iTunes. This little install program for MAC and Windows allows you to finally associate M3U playlists with iTunes and have them perform as expected; like a playlist.
M3U2iTunes simply creates a single playlist named “M3U Internet Stream” and places all songs from the downloaded m3u playlist into the M3U Internet Stream playlist.
M3U Internet Stream is always used as the target for m3u playlists. Rather than creating a new playlist each time, the M3U Internet Stream playlist is removed and recreated (so you won’t have a huge mess of new playlists in your iTunes libraries).
There is a Macintosh and a Windows version of M3U2iTunes. Each requires iTunes 4.5 or higher.
This makes me very happy and it works like a freakin charm. Download it and try it out on the next akaRaff Radio Drop.
Instead of sending someone a link or pictures via an email or over IM, next time send them a FlowGram. A FlowGram allows you create a real interactive experience for whomever you want to send information to. Instead of them trying to figure out why you are sending them the link, you can actually walk them through the website or photo-album with your own words. Unlike other techniques like Screencasts, screen shots, or just talking over the phone, FlowGram allows your audience to follow along with you or start clicking around and interacting on their own. It is pretty slick. Check out the widget below for a sample of what you can do with it.
I love this recipe and I am not a huge fan of chicken. Charlotte’s Boursin Roasted Chicken will make chicken seem like an aged Rib-eye. It is one of my go-to dishes when entertaining friends and never fails to impress. With 4 ingredients, the ease of execution of this dish will make you want to slather Boursin on anything and everything. I am confident you will enjoy it as much as I do.
I signed up for Seesmic a little while back and today I decided to actually check it out. For those who haven’t heard about it, the service is basically a video version of Twitter. Since I know I am not ready to unleash a video version of this mug to the world quite yet I decided to check out a couple of the folks who are less coy than I am.
The first person I came across was this woman talking about flip-flops and how many of them cause foot pain. In fact it seems to be quite a topic now a days. Even USAToday has an article on it.
Who would have thought that the first video I watched would hit home and turn my thoughts to a very specific moment in my life. A moment that culminated in a story of great pain, feet, and a crazed doctor who obviously spent too much studying diagnosis criteria charts and not enough time interacting with real humans. I thought I would share it with you all. I have held it in far too long.
The story starts with furious, unadulterated foot pain. For over a year I would wake up in the morning and nearly fall over because of the shooting pain in my feet. I would fight through it to the shower, while I showered, and through my meticulous tooth brushing. By the time I walked back to my room it was gone. 10 minutes (yes I am a man of many efficiencies) from bed to shower and back again and my feet were back in business. It was uncanny. Like any normal 30 something guy….I “dealt” with this charade for over a year. Until the arrival of my next yearly physical, my foot pain was just an adversity or twisted challenge I decided to face each and every morning. It was that fateful day that my life changed. It changed in ways that were unexpected for reasons that were even more unexpected. My feet had a meeting with destiny. It was time to address the issue.
I remember that day being hot. One of those sweaty, steamy, hot July days. I was seeing a new doctor and I remember trying not to get too soiled walking from my car to the office. My old Doctor had recently gotten sick of the grind, moved to Africa, opened a clinic, and left me doctor-less, holding a letter explaining his new found freedom. Bummer.
I entered the office and was greeted with a smile by my new practitioner. She seemed friendly based on her initial “how you doing” though from the onset her manner was a bit too rigid for my liking. I need a Dr. with a little humor to get me through the “tough” moments. Unfortunately she was a no-show in that sense and I had to go it alone. I humorlessly fought through the standard poking, prodding, and such until I finally got my chance to address up my busted feet. I was hoping to start seeing the light at the end of the pain tunnel very soon.
I will start with how I envisioned the conversation going down:
Doctor: “So is there anything else going on that I should know about?”
akaRaff: “Funny that you ask. These size 13 boats are killing me. I get up in the morning and I walk on hot knives for 10 minutes and then it goes away”
[Doctor pulls out pad, writes something, rips the note off the pad, and hands it to me]
Doctor: “Have the receptionist outside set up an appointment with this podiatrist. He is the best I know. I am sure he will be able to get that straightened out for you.”
akaRaff: “Awesome. You are the best! Can’t wait for next year! Can I have one of those lollipops?”
This seemed like a very reasonable expectation…but oh how wrong I was….Dr. “My Stethoscope if caught in my belt buckle” decided to take this challenge on herself:
Doctor: “So is there anything else going on that I should know about?”
akaRaff: “Well, my feet are really bothering me. When I get up in the morning my feet really hurt for 10 minutes and then they are fine.”
Doctor: “Hhhhmmmm. [Looks at chart for 35 seconds]. Well you know akaRaff obesity is the leading cause of foot pain.”
akaRaff: “[I pause for my own 35 seconds to make sure that registered correctly] Huh?”
Doctor: “Well akaRaff, your charts indicate that you are Obese. If you drop 35 pounds you should see your foot problems go away”
akaRaff: ” I am 6′3″ and weigh 235lbs right?”
Doctor: “Yes”
akaRaff: [in my head I thought some very nasty thoughts..all of which were hidden by a long inhale and a very deliberate exhale]
akaRaff: “I haven’t been 200lbs since I was 13. In fact I highly doubt what you are asking is possible. Shouldn’t I go see a specialist or something?”
Doctor: [Question Ignored] “I know Obesity is a tough thing to deal with. I can refer you to a nutritionist if you think that would help”
akaRaff: [I know I was getting no where with this one and I was ready to tell her some things that would make me feel better but would probably get me evicted from the room. I mean I have never been thin but I most certainly can see my belt buckle without discomfort. I used to play basketball 4 days a week and never saw below 215lb. This conversation was obviously a dead end.] “Ok. I will let you know. Thanks”
Doctor: “Ok. Good luck and let me know if you need anything” [Smile]
The humanity! I walked out of that office still feeling the pain in my feet and officially diagnosed as an Obese person. What a turn of events. I never saw that coming. As far as I was concerned I had two options.. 1) wallow in my newly found protected class status….or…2) walk around the corner into the Pharmacy and buy a $12 pair of Dr. Sholls and see if I can solve this shite on my own while salvaging my pride. Needless to say I took the second option. I now never take a step without my trusty foot support. I have not had foot pain ever since and my flip-flops only take me from the locker room to the shower and back. The irony was thick as molasses.
A funny thing happened a month or so ago while I was sitting on a flight back from Charlotte. I was readying the SkyMall magazine (I know you read it too!) and I came across this little item. It is a foot stretching device that is used to heal Plantar Fasciitis. As I read more, the magazine proceeded to diagnose my foot issues and more importantly gave me 4 or 5 different devices that would fix them. The FREAKING SKYMALL! To think that a magazine that is housed between the barf bag and that crazy safety guide that i superstitiously refuse to look at was able diagnose my issue better (and more considerately) than a “well” educated physician. I snipped the article and will be bring it to her on my next appointment. It will be my pleasure to add to her education.
So the moral of this story is…..well there are 2 that I can think of…..1) if your feet start to hurt go and buy some insoles and see how you feel a week later…..2) some Doctor’s live in a different world in which they don’t have to relate to people but instead just need to know how to plot your weight on a industry standard chart and call you Obese as if it is your name. Don’t blame that extra weight or let a doctor tell you such. Your best bet is to spend the money you normally pay your doctor and get on a flight to some tropical island, peruse the SkyMile catalog, have a few strong frozen drinks, and leave those damn flip-flops at home. Your feet with thank you and your self-esteem will be stronger than it ever has been.
AT&T’s new 3D browser experience, Pogo, looks very much like something that Apple would make. Maybe part of the iPhone deal is to let AT&T steal as many design ideas as they can from Apple to see if they can pull them off. Apple obviously thinks they can’t. Based on this demo maybe they have.
The Dandy’s are back! I am definitely in for the Boston show. I am a bit surprised they are going to the Wilbur Theater. If Avalon wasn’t recently dismantled, I would guess they would have played there instead.
There is a pre-sale via Ticket Master on Thursday June 19th at 10am. You can only buy tickets during this pre-sale if you have a Citibank credit card. BS is you ask me. If any of my buddies who I know will be interested in this….(i.e. any of the guys over at slapjack)….have a Citibank card please include me as a plus 2 on that purchase.
June 17 - Victoria, BC @ Element Nightclub
June 18 - Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
June 20 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo^
Sep 09 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue*
Sep 10 - Madison, WI @ Barrymore*
Sep 12 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theater*
Sep 13 - Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus*
Sep 14 - Montreal, QC @ Club Soda* Sep 16 - Boston, MA @ Wilbur Theatre*
Sep 17 - New York, NY @ Terminal 5*
Sep 20 - Philadelphia, PA @ TLA*
Sep 22 - Washington, DC @ 930 Club*
Sep 23 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse*
Sep 26 - Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall*
Sep 27 - Denver, CO @ Gothic Theater*
Sep 28 - Aspen, CO @ Belly Up*
Oct 03 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern #
Oct 04 - San Francisco, CA @ Warfield %
Oct 05 - Portland, OR @ The Roseland Theater (No Pre-Sale)*
Step #1: Prepare your beverage of choice. 
I signed up for 
