andrewteman.org

Not to get all Jason Calicanisy here, but I’ve been thinking for a while now about my blog and blogging in general (NERD ALERT!). More specifically what the latter means these days, and as such, and what to do with the former.

It’s been ages since I posted anything even vaguely unique or substantive - something that wasn’t a just quick snippet, photo, video, or link. Which is why I have found myself moving more towards posting shorter, more frequent items to Twitter and Flickr, and finding a lot more satisfaction in doing so (though this wasn’t always the case).

Paul Boutin said it well in a recent Wired article:

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

I think this is pretty dead on, particularly the last line, and so from now on, this site will mainly lay in state, and my new short-form world will exist on AndrewTeman.COM. Be sure and update your RSS feeds here if you want to follow along. It’s riveting I know.

The new site, as I said, will mainly be Twitter updates, Flickr photos, and some ancillary info pulled from my Delicious, Yelp, and Last.FM feeds, nice and simple. Granted there will still be things that I want to get out there that just won’t fit neatly into JPG format, or in 140 character strings, and for that, the blog will remain here in it’s current form, but with grossly sparse updates at very best.

It’s been a good run. Since May of 2004, there have been 815 posts, over 1,200 comments, and well over one million visitors.

See you over at the new place.

Right on the heels of the Cocktail Party Playlist Mix, here is a short, but (in my opinion) solid Christmas music mix. Most mixes consist of the same 15 or so songs, so I tried to find original versions, the most iconic versions, or the just what I thought were the best versions of each of the songs. Obviously everyone has their personal tastes, but this is the ultimate Christmas music playlist in my world.

I love all of these songs, but I think I am partial to Little Saint Nick from The Beach Boys (just something about surfin’ Christmas music), and Run Rudolph Run from Chuck Berry. But as far as the best pure Christmas song, I think the Brenda Lee version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree is hard to beat.

As was the case with the cocktail party mix, this is in descending alphabetical order by song title. Also, there are two versions of Santa Clause Is Comin’ To Town, because both the Sinatra and the Springsteen versions are both fantastic….and different enough to appear on the same mix without being annoying.

Enjoy!

Julie and I hosted a little get together recently, and for background music, I tuned the iPod up to play my hand selected cocktail party mix that I made back in the spring. Now I know everyone has their own individual tastes, but I did get multiple unsolicited compliments on this mix at our last soiree, so I thought I’d post the track listing here.

The short back-story on the mix is that my searches for “cocktail party music” never quite yielded what I was looking for. I knew I wanted a good mix of classic cool music (aka, either genuinely classic as in old or just classic in sound), that would be good background sound, but not go unnoticed completely. This mix seems to have hit that spot that I was going for.

So if you are looking for some good cocktail party music, here is my recommended play list, not in any particular order…merely descending alphabetically by track name.

I have another popular mix of non-shitty Christmas music that I will post soon as well for those that may be interested.

Been seeing a lot of tilt shift stuff lately, and I have to say, I think it is pretty cool. Especially the time-lapse tilt shift videos like the one below.

Whole bunch more here.