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April 27, 2007
( New | Old ) Music April 
Maserati has a new album, and it's a triple surprise:
a_ I thought they broke up
b_ It's a new album
c_ It's (*&&^(*@ amazing
This is seriously one of the best things I've heard in a long time, post rock or indie rock in general.
I just heard the new Arctic Monkeys. While there's nothing terribly surprising about it -- it sounds like a better written/produced version of the last album -- it's still a great record (although a bit short at 37 minutes).
I just checked out Other Music's digital store. Surprisingly, one of the top albums is Gui Boratto's Chromaphobia -- which I've been telling friends for months is (*^#$ amazing ... something like a cross between Vitalic and Mylo. Also surprising -- one of the top single tracks for sale is The Difference It Makes by the MFA -- which has long been one of my favorite electronic tracks. Its about time they're moving some units.
The new Dungen is amazing, as expected.
A bit old...
the new Blonde Redhead is completely amazing. I saw them tune up at the apple store while my ipod was being replaced the other day -- which brought up the incredibly odd juxtaposition as I remembered seeing them for the first time at cbgb's around 1994 right when the self-titled came out. They were the opening act for someone on SubPop... i think it was the grifters. I remember my friends and I being completely floored by their show , and when we bought CDs off them they were completely floored that we had such a positive response.
The new Ted Leo is a bit of a disappointment. I dont think its as good as his other efforts, nothing on it is really that catchy or energetic. Its very studio/radio friendly though-- i can see him selling a ton of records.
I finally heard Fujiya and Miyagi. They might be doing a better version of ripping off Can and Neu than Stereolab.
The new Apples in Stereo might be the best elephant 6 associated recording yet.
The Ellen Allien mix for The Other Side is pretty solid -- the opening Bowie track is kind of overboard though.
On a recommendation I checked out '120 Days' who got some buzz at SXSW. Its a great record, though I don't know how to explain it.
The hollAnd record "The Paris Hilton Mujahideen" might be the best title of a record in ages-- and titles like "Boolean Misery Index" make it even better. While its a fun listen, its still very Teenbeat records-ish , and I can only take so much of that sound.
The new The Sea and Cake is pretty amazing.
Feist's "The Reminder" was surprisingly great. Its way more accessible than her last album.
Explosions in the Sky - "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" is simply great.
Do Make Say Thing - "You, You're a History in Rust" is brilliant too.
Posted by Jonathan at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2007
Mail.app crashes / won't start up -- what do I do?
Mail.app has been dying on me nonstop for the past few months. Maybe 1x every 4 hours it just crashes whenever I click a message.
Everyone online says "delete your prefs, that should work!"
I say "That's stupid! I have a bunch of accounts! I can't reinstall them all! and what about all the settings I want?"
So the solution:
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist.backup
Then open up the com.apple.mail.plist in TextWrangler (or something similar) , and start hacking away non-essential plist keys/value pairs.
To get mail.app to work again for me, I deleted the following nodes:
ActiveEditors
ActiveSingleViewers
ActiveViewers
WebKit*
remember that key/value pairs in plists are:
<key>
<$value/>
ie, value nodes follow the keys
try deleting the nodes and restarting -- it should work. if not, delete some more.
using this method, you'll keep your accounts and settings intact -- except for the system crippling ones.
you'll also have a backup of your plist so you can copy/paste back in anything that was non-offensive.
I'm fairly certain that the crashes I have experienced occured because of these 3 nodes:
ActiveEditors
ActiveSingleViewers
ActiveViewers
so I'd suggest starting there. There are a bunch of miscellaneous settings and plugin options you'll encounter that can be tossed as well.
Posted by Jonathan at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2007
Poker 2.0
Congrats to Bob and Jameson who are now officially Web 2.0 elite.
Unfortunately their newfound status has nothing to do with their awesome MochiMedia company that is blowing up the interwebs -- its solely resting on the new season of the Poker Club they've been playing in since Bob left NYC.
Valleywag actually reported on the new season of their poker club as news. Amazing.
Poker 2.0 - http://valleywag.com/tech/clans/the-players-251942.php
Posted by Jonathan at 7:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack