Recently in oh freshness! Category
What does a person who has been on a blog hiatus for quite some time say? I mean, let's face it. It's obvious that my foremost love is music and I consider the rest of my life to be either terribly complex or terribly
I believe that's about to change, because SXSW has lit a fire under me to actually move forward instead of keeping things in my head.
With camera in hand, I went there to hang out with RPM, J. Brotherlove, George, Tim Tiffany (who's also here and here), Lynne d, and Jason, with the promise of new experiences, and a good vacation.
Well, this wasn't just a good vacation, it was one of the best times I've had in years. You see, it started out with Victor Tolbert, Keith Hall, Jeffrey Bowman, Baratunde, JW Richard within the first 2 hours of being there. Then, soon after that, I get to see Tony Pierce. As if that weren't enough, I also get to see George and Janeane Sessum. But it doesn't stop there.
After attending the Blogging While Black Revisited panel (the main reason that I attended SXSW), I was more than hyped, and already making my plans for next year. Oh, but I ain't done. It gets even better. I get to spend some time with three of the coolest women around: Denise Jacobs, Leslye James, and Laina Dawes. Around the way I get to meet Drublood, take a picture of Chris Pirillo, trip on out with Liza, and say hello to Ming Jung Kim.
I could go on and on about how I met many more people. I could tell you how I almost overdosed myself with eating wayyyy too much barbecue at Iron Works, about how I actually danced and didn't scare people away, and had a nuclear taco that I'll never eat again 'cause it was too damn hot and I'm sure it will take a month for my mouth to be normal again. I'm also not going to talk about missing a Wendy and Lisa, Erykah Badu, ?uestlove and company. I won't. Just know I'll be there again next year...and you needs to be with me. Forreal.
Coming up.... reviews, rotations, and podcasts. And yeah, even everyday thangs in the land of EJ.
There's a lot of things going on in the world musically, and having a very
busy week can be time consuming, we all know. Because I've had to balance a
lot of things, I've had to forego the Friday Melodies this week. I'm sure that
anyone can understand that mixing mellow songs with U2, Gwen Stefani, Julie Dexter, REM, and
Snoop Dogg isn't a very easy endeavour.
There is, however, something I've been pretty proud of that I've been able to
help with this week. There was one particular blogger that was mentioned a while
back. As I started reading his blog....which, by the way was all done by hand, I contacted him and let him know that what
he was doing was a great thing. It got even better.
My friends, he discovered Radio Blogging, had a great sense of humor, and kept
me laughing continuously through the day. Who am I talking about? Why, Todd
Kelley of course.
He introduced me to Goblox, The Strange Fruit Project, and he even did his Top
25 CDs of all time. He even challenged me to come up with the top 10 CDs of
the year (and yeah, it's coming- watch for it). My contribution? I edged him to the realm of Movable Type. Yes, he
has crossed over to blog publishing. You can leave comments, trackbacks,
and even blogroll/blogline him: [xml feed]
[xml feed with comments]
So my friends, check him out- he has his melodies all on the right hand side,
and opinions and humor all around.....
...and tell him EJ sent you.
I'm sure I could talk about what a great time I had in DC all weekend, so instead
of doing that, I'll redirect you to the following posts to begin with, as your
prerequisite reading material:
1. Donald has a rentparty
going on. It's essential that you attend.
2. Prime gives a description
of the weekend.
3. Lise lights
up
the joint.
4. Queen Sexy carries
on.
5. Steven Fullwood
gave lots of energy.
6. Nova gives us major
phatness.
Now that you've gotten that out the way, it's time for a photogenic rundown
of the Hot Ones.
A couple of people have told me in no uncertain turns that I don't blog as often as I should. Yes, I'm lame. I admit it. Blame it on the number 37 this week.
37 is the number of hours I will have worked this week come end of the day today. You know that vacation I was supposed to be taking? Well, I'm still taking it, but it's a shame that I have almost 40 hours under my belt and it's only mid-week. Blogging has become a luxury, but that's no excuse.
Speaking of vacation, I'll be taking it tomorrow, thank you very much, in the lovely D.C., although away from Bush. I'm sure I'll be running into a couple of people while I'm there. Oh yeah, and him too.
But while I'm being lame, I've decided I will be lame for a good cause, and that's music. Yep, another meme because the cool people did one, and they got it from other cool people. I guess I should really get into the iTunes thing.
Fantastic Flavors Fadeproof Flavors Shmoove is all over the place. Hermes is back (finally), and so now I'm happy as hell and trying to get everything straightened out. On my to do list:
1. Sleep. I'm tired as hell. Two letters: O.T.
2. This MovableType 3.0 thing is exhilarating, but it's also giving me some serious fits. If you think that commenting is painful as hell, join the club. It IS a pain. Just follow the login prompts, close out comments, and then go back into commenting again. Little things like CSS, the comment box, and templates I have yet to work out. All that being said, it's not a bad thing, and 3.0 has its pluses. I'm still really trying to adjust. Which brings me to Project EJ Cubed:
3. Exponent is on it's way into being integrated here. With version 3.0 and MT plugins, I can pull it all in. (Exporting from Typepad's going to be interesting, since it's not terribly intuitive). The warmer it gets the more the musical notes heat me up even further. There have been a couple of things going on. First off, I lost a signature, and because of it got a nice comment from:
4. Laurnea, which means that I will be reviewing the CD, I Remember. While I did lose her autograph, I did get Omar's, and subsequently I went record shopping and:
5. Met Lizz Fields, purchased her album, and went to her concert. Photogenic and musical at the same time, it's been a good thing.
6. Thanks to KB, I'm now on Burn-It: The Spring 2004 Edition. Time's running out with a quickness, but I've managed to pull it off.
7. I've joined Blogcritics now.
8. I've gotten my swole on, and I'm back up to my weight and my strength I was striving for. I'll be updating about that soon enough. Time for phase II.
Time to synch up my keyboard with my mind...
I can honestly say that I'm not much on rhymes or poetry, claiming myself to be either firmly ensconced in technical geekness, or considering myself to be a creatively-challenged person. I'm sure quite a few people would say otherwise. Be that as it may, I thought it would be cool to dig into the crates for Poem On Your Blog Day, declared by RonnTaylor and buttonized by Ofrenda. The first poem that came to mind is by Maya Angelou.
Maya was one of the people that hit me at an early age, though not in poetry, but in books. I would read voraciously when I was younger, and practically memorized some of her books, like I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Singin' And Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas. The last poem that I can remember clearly that struck me, however, was Still I Rise, which always makes me smile in the face of danger and uncertainty.
