Bringing the Drama

In the 2nd half of my college experience, back when I was young and naive, I bought cds like they were going out of style. I probably spent half of my intern money on cds after my first intern semester. I sometimes would drive up to Greenville, SC just to go to the record shop when I was working in Greenwood, SC. Not every visit netted something important, but I did happen to score a vinyl copy of the Pearl Jam live album, which apparently is out of print and worth more than the $12 I paid for it. My 5th year when I had an on-campus job, I probably still spent way too much on cds.

The year I was living in Clemson being a bum, (aka believing a headhunter really did have an ‘in’ for a job for me and was just working things out) I went to the local music store a lot. The owner gave me the inside scoop on new bands, and I was always a sucker for albums that were $6.99 and $7.99, no matter who they were. If someone recommended them, I’d buy them. I found John Mayer this way before ‘No Such Thing’ broke. Yeah, I am that cool. I also found this guy, Pete Yorn. His first album is still one of my favorites. My friend Marika and I called him the mimbo. It used to be ’smoldering mimbo’, but now I think it’s just mimbo. I may be the only person still using the nickname. Anyway, he had a song on his 2nd album called ‘Burrito’ that Marika and I would laugh about. I saw him live in 2003, and he played Burrito that night. It was one of the highlights of the show.

I had seen Pete Yorn listed for a NOLA tour stop a couple of weeks ago, but seeing how it was on a Tuesday was going to make it difficult to find a concert friend. With friends being married and maybe with kids now, they somehow don’t have time anymore for weeknight concerts. Anyway, so I was talking to my friend Jacob last week and he asked me if I wanted to go see Pete Yorn. We’re going Tuesday, and we’ll both have beards because Jacob’s in Whiskerino again and I’m growing mine out again. If time permits, I’ll get a picture. Word.

John Mayer did a video for the song Heartbreak Warfare using something called augmented reality. I tried it out last night and it was cool. I am one of the very few people in the country without a printer at home, so I drew the heart using a pen and a black Sharpie. It worked though on my 2nd attempt, because the first time I drew the heart too big. My 2nd attempt was about 2″x2″. If you have a printer, you may want to skip this step. So if you have a webcam, check it out. The song is great too. I really like the smoothness of it.

If you aren’t able to work it, I found a video on youtube someone made with the video and it should give you an idea of how the AR works. The fingers and stuff on the side, that’s the person’s fingers. When you activate your webcam, it’s kind of like a window, so when you match up the heart on the paper to the heart on the screen, the video starts up. The heart on the paper acts as an anchor for the animation. So when you move the heart, the animation moves, when you twist it, the animation twists. Got all that? It’ll makes sense once you see it in action.