Best Songs of 2009

Although nobody might read this, I’ll still enjoy the pleasure of being a self-righteous music geek. Ok, so best songs of 2009 so far. I have to admit that although I’m very open-minded musically, I don’t listen to EVERYTHING out there. However, I like to think that I listen to all the good stuff

So check these songs out if you haven’t already. Buy, download, or whatever. Don’t miss out.

Tweet @ me or leave a comment here if you disagree or think I left out anything. OK, enough of my yappin’… let’s go!

1. “Pretty Wings” – Maxwell
   Why- Cause it’s Maxwell.
   Best Thing – This is just an all-around perfect love song.
2. “Nothing to worry about” – Peter Bjorn & John
   Why – These Swedish dudes always deliver. Their whole album was excellent.
   Best Thing – The catchy beat, the kids voices.
3. “Gifted” – NASA (feat. Kanye West, Santogold, & Lykke Li)
   Why - It’s the best dance song of the year
   Best Thing – This song has both the black AND white versions of MIA!!! + Kanye
4. “My Girls” – Animal Collective
   Why – Listen to the song.
   Best Thing -  See what I mean?
5. “History” – Mos Def (featuring Talib Kweli)
   Why – Two of alternative hip-hop’s great lyricists, with lines like “You can’t get rid of us – ubiquitous. And we lay the law like Leviticus”. This song is like heaven for those of us who listen to REAL hip-hop.
   Best Thing - It was produced by the late J Dilla. One of the great composers of this generation. (RIP)
6. “Paranoid“  – Kanye West
7. “Epiphany” – Chrisette Michele
8. “Shining Down” -  Lupe Fiasco (featuring Matthew Santos)
9. “Casa Bey” – Mos Def
10. “Lost!” – Coldplay (featuring. Jay-Z)

Sexy Web Design

I recommend this book to everyone out there with a penchant for creating beatiful, useable interfaces. I’ve finished reading it, and I can’t wait to jump on a new project where it can be applied. It’s also insightful beyond web design; you can apply these techniques to standalone software, print, games, or anything at all.

** I know I haven’t blogged in a while now. Twitter truly is the kryptonite of blogging. I mean, why bother with WordPress when you can Tweet in just 140 characters?

My FRESH Pair of Steps

(Very) limited edition Converse by Jack Purcell for British band Black Sabbath. Chuck Taylor’s are fly, but these are extra FLY.

And when I wore it for the first time today, Rick Ross’s “Magnificent” (featuring John Legend) was booming out of my iPod, and I felt quite… magnificent.

My Twelve Favourite Albums

Common: BE (2005), John Mayer: Room for Squares (2001), Talib Kweli: Quality (2002), Coldplay: Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends/Prospekt’s March EP (2008), John Legend: Get Lifted (2004), The Kooks: Konk (2008), Q-Tip: The Renaissance (2008), Jay-Z: The Black Album (2003), Mos Def: Black on Both Sides (1999), Eminem: The Eminem Show (2002), Lupe Fiasco: Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool (2007), Vanessa Carlton: Be Not Nobody (2002)

Although I hate to categorize my music taste, it is generally urban comtemporary, mostly spanning across the alternative corners of hip-hop, rock, soul, jazz, and folk. 

I’ve stopped listening to “Top 40″ mainstream music, and just stick to the good stuff; that is, music with experimental instrumentation, genre-fusion, and most importantly, top-notch lyrical content.

While most of my 12 favourite albums are somewhat mainstream, they do meet the above criteria. Coldplay and Lupe Fiasco’s are deep journeys into political and social metaphorism, while Common and Mos Def’s are packed with jazzy Afro-centric sounds that refresh the mind, while providing food for thought.

All these albums share something in common. You can listen to them from start to finish without having or needing to skip a single track. You also want to listen to the whole album to get a good feel for the individual songs. Especially for Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool, and Coldplay.

Talib Kweli’s “Quality” contains some of the most powerful and amazing lyrics I’ve ever heard in my life. The word-play, the poetry, the endless metaphors. He is one of the most under-rated artists of this generation.

While no Kanye West album made my list of favourites, he produced FOUR of the albums. He has also produced/written songs for EVERYONE on the list, with the exception of The Kooks and Vanessa Carlton. Love him or hate him, the guy is a genius.

 

My favourite of them all? Very hard to say. However, the most complete listening experience would be Q-Tip’s “The Renaissance.” Very neo-soul for a 2000’s album, but retro and modern at the same time. Modest, yet pop-conscious. Q-Tip also got help from an amazing line-up of featured singers: Norah Jones, Amanda Diva, Raphael Saadiq, and D’Angelo. Yes, D’ANGELO!!!!

If you haven’t listened to any of the twelve albums above, add them to your list. Start your summer with some good tunes.

PS: Almost made the list: Brandy: “Human”, Kanye West: “College Dropout”, Talib Kweli: “Ear Drum”, Coldplay “X&Y”, Nas: “Illmatic”

In no particular order.

Common: BE (2005), John Mayer: Room for Squares (2001), Talib Kweli: Quality (2002), Coldplay: Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends/Prospekt’s March EP (2008), John Legend: Get Lifted (2004), The Kooks: Konk (2008), Q-Tip: The Renaissance (2008), Jay-Z: The Black Album (2003), Mos Def: Black on Both Sides (1999), Eminem: The Eminem Show (2002), Lupe Fiasco: Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool (2007), Vanessa Carlton: Be Not Nobody (2002).

Although I hate to categorize my music taste, it is generally urban comtemporary, mostly spanning across the alternative corners of hip-hop, rock, soul, jazz, and folk. 

I’ve stopped listening to “Top 40″ mainstream music, and just stick to the good stuff; that is, music with experimental instrumentation, genre-fusion, and most importantly, first class lyrical content: from to Lupe Fiasco to Vanessa Carlton.

While most of my 12 favourite albums are somewhat mainstream, they do meet the above criteria. Coldplay and Lupe Fiasco’s are deep journeys into political and social metaphorism, while Common and Mos Def’s are packed with jazzy Afro-centric sounds that refresh the mind, while providing food for thought.

All these albums share something in common. You can listen to them from start to finish without having or needing to skip a single track. You also want to listen to the whole album to get a good feel for the individual songs. 

Talib Kweli’s “Quality” contains some of the most powerful and amazing lyrics I’ve ever heard in my life. The word-play, the poetry, the endless metaphors. He is one of the most under-rated artists of this generation.

While no Kanye West album made my list of favourites, he produced FOUR of the albums. He has also produced/written songs for EVERYONE on the list, with the exception of The Kooks and Vanessa Carlton. Love him or hate him, the guy is a genius.

My favourite of them all? Very hard to say. However, the most complete listening experience would be Q-Tip’s “The Renaissance.” Very neo-soul for a 2000’s album, but retro and modern at the same time. Modest, yet pop-conscious. Q-Tip also got help from an amazing line-up of featured singers: Norah Jones, Amanda Diva, Raphael Saadiq, and D’Angelo. Yes, D’ANGELO!!!!

If you haven’t listened to any of the twelve albums above, add them to your list. Start your summer with some good tunes.

Did I forget to mention anyone? Drop a comment and let me know…

PS: Almost made the list: Brandy: “Human”, Kanye West: “College Dropout”, Talib Kweli: “Ear Drum”, Coldplay “X&Y”, Nas: “Illmatic”, Radiohead: “In Rainbows,” Lupe Fiasco: “Lupe Fiasco’s Food and Liquor”.

Will You Pay to Use FlickR, Facebook, or your Email?

Interesting Los Angeles Times article about how our favourite free web tools could start charging us service fees. The rationale is good, and I agree that this will happen sooner than we expect. Read the article here.

Christopher Hitchens vs. Mos Def

Friday March 27 2009, guests Mos Def and Christopher Hitchens sparred intensely on Real Time with Bill Maher, leaving host Bill Maher and other guest, Salman Rushdie, almost helpless. I LOVE Mos Def, but he was just plain ignorant, while Hitchens was condescending and rude as usual. 

Cool Logos Made with Helvetica

I’m one of those very font-conscious people, and I hardly use Helvetica. I have to jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late. Check out some cool A-list logo’s made with Helvetica. Who woulda thought?

Seven Ways To Lower System Storage

A very good read from ITWorld. Check it out here.

The King of All Mashups

WOW. This is the best thing I’ve heard in ages. Okay, I do love mashups.

Jaydiohead (Jay-Z and Radiohead) was epic, Eminelton (Eminem and Elton John) was alright; The Grey Album (The Beatles and Jay-Z was okay.

But this new mashup from Super Mash Bros is on a whole different level. You HAVE to download the album here.

Twitter is here to stay

Twitter just secured $35 million in funding. The tech market is recession-proof!!! Props to Twitter.

Read ITWorld’s announcement here.

Transfer Blackberry contacts to your iPhone!!!

Although I do not approve of ditching the Blackberry, I know people who have tried (and failed) doing this. ITWorld has a great article on how to export your contact lists from your Blackberry to your iPhone.  Read here.

The Plug linked by Technorati!!!

Well, yours truly’s blog has an inbound link from… Technorati.

Yup, THAT Technorati: the holy book of all tech blogs.

This is amazing! My Ruby on Rails post is the 7th highest ranked post tagged for Ruby on Rails on Technorati!!! It’s always great to know that people out there read my blog. Especially, via Technorati.

Check it out here.

The Ruby on Rails Application Framework

Recently, I wrote a technical report on Ruby on Rails. Read and enjoy here.

Cool Apps for Blackberry Storm

Since I will be getting one soon, I’ve decided to start an early look at some of the Storm apps out there.

There are some pretty cool ones. Check them out here.

Weblog Awards 2008!

The blog Oscar’s are here again. I obviously voted for Andrew Sullivan.

Vote for your favourite blogs here.

How to: Recover Files After Hard Disk Boot Failure

I have been meaning to post this for a while.

Above is a screenshot of how I used Ubuntu to recover files from my dead laptop PC. A few months ago, I tried to start my computer and I got the infamous black screen of death; the error message saying something along the lines of “booting error, system disk failure.”

There is a pretty good chance your system files got corrupted, possibly by a virus, and you might possibly lose all the files on your hard disk drive — on your pretty much dead computer.

FEAR NOT, and do not waste your money doing a file recovery.

Get a working computer,  then download and burn a UBUNTU LIVE cd with a program like this. Then follow a series of instructions here. Cool, huh? Let me know if it works for you too. Please spread the love.

Scientific Explanations for Douchebag Disorders

This is a hilarious, frivolous read: Enjoy here

Best Thing of 2008

Not the Obama victory, not “Batman: The Dark Knight”, and not Tina Fey’s SNL skits. Sure, those were great, but not as great as the new iTunes feature — Genius.

This was a dream come true for every music geek out there. Pick a song on iTunes, or on your iPhone or Touch; click the Genius button, and in seconds a playlist with similar songs is generated.

If you select Coldplay’s “Talk,” expect songs like Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and Dave Matthews’ “American baby.” Selecting Jay-Z’s “Heart of the city” generates similar classics from Nas, Common, and Lupe Fiasco.

However, Jay’s T.I. collaboration “Swagga like us” would generate similarly self-aggrandizing tunes like Lil Wayne’s “A milli,” and Santogold’s “Shove it.”

Brilliant! The genius of Genius made my 2008.

2008: Year of the untalented hack

GQ labelled 2008 as “Year of the whore” (see John McCain, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Kwame Kilpatrick).

Simply put, the year of people willing to sell their dignity for power or a few minutes of self-gratification. I agree with them, but I still think 2008 was “Year of the untalented hack.“

Sarah Palin, Britney Spears, and Rihanna proved that you don’t need to have genuine talent, or be intellectually stimulating, to be adored by millions.

Three of them got away with merely giving a (pretty good) impression of possessing talent. What a shame.

iTech Sneaking Into Your Vocabulary

Who uses the word “search” anymore? The verb “search,” used in its internet context, has found a more powerful synonym — “Google.”

When you need to find information online, you google it. The word “search” is now kinda lame.

Adobe’s popular graphic application, Photoshop, has also found its way into our everyday vocabulary as a synonym for any form of photo-editing or remodeling, regardless of whether what medium was used. Like Google, it has gone from noun to verb.

Other notable mentions:

YouTube: “I missed Family Guy tonight. I’ll YouTube* it later.”  *[watch it online]

Blog: “I am blogging* on my blog right now.” *[writing]

Facebook: “Hey let’s keep in touch. Call or Facebook* me later.”  *[holler at me online]

TIME Magazine Person of the Year

Of course.

Web 2.0 Discoveries

I’ve been learning a lot of AJAX and advanced web development techniques. Of course, it’s mostly Ruby on Rails, in case you were wondering.

Andrew Sullivan isn’t done with Sarah Palin, yet.

Andrew Sullivan is still ripping on Sarah Palin:

“This deluded and delusional woman still doesn’t understand what happened to her; still has no self-awareness; and has never been forced to accept her obvious limitations. She cannot keep even the most trivial story straight; she repeats untruths with a ferocity and calm that is reserved only to the clinically unhinged; she has the educational level of a high school drop-out; and regards ignorance as some kind of achievement. It is excruciating to watch her – but more excruciating to watch those who feel obliged to defend her.”

Read his full blog post here.

I think he’s absolutely spot on. I kinda like the woman, but she lost the election. So enough with her already. She should go back to Alaska and study some basic history and current affairs.

Anderson Cooper and CNN’s “Hologram”

The major highlight of election night was (sorry, not Obama’s victory) CNN’s Anderson Cooper talking with Black Eyed Peas’ singer Will.i.am via Hologram. It was hilarious and awesome. I laughed out loud, literally, until the thing was over. Anderson Cooper (along with Wolf Blitzer and CNN) has got to be one of the vainest TV personalities of this age!

Watch video here.

On a serious note though, Obama’s victory was truly a great moment in history. I am glad to have witnessed it, and it truly was a happy ending to this long, seemingly neverending, reality show of a presidential campaign season.

Watch Barack Obama’s victory speech here.

Shocker: Facebook isn’t “really” profitable

Like a few of the major tech companies out of Silicon Valley and elsewhere, Facebook boasts a  mega-large user base and hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue. However, according to Social Networking Watch, Facebook is running out of cash. Read the shocker here.

Web 2.0 and the Dictionary

Coming soon…

John Cleese on Countdown with Keith Olbermann

One of my heroes, original funny Englishman of Monty Python fame, John Cleese, was on Keith’s show on MSNBC tonight. It was a total laugh-fest. Keith’s sarcasm can be funny, but Cleese took it to a whole new level, and I laughed out loud, literally, for the entire segment he was on.

Synthetic Telepathy: Blog without typing!

The US Army is developing a new technology that will enable users to communicate directly from their thoughts to email or voicemail, without moving a muscle.

This is really neat. Read about it here.

Taking it back to the good ol’

Enjoy my new Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses: (Don’t hate, you would do the same if you just bought a pair *wink*)

Verdict: McCain vs Obama Debate

After watching Friday night’s debate and assimilating the verdicts of various analysts and pundits, I think it’s fair to say the debate was a draw, or a very slight Obama win. John McCain performed better than expected, and Obama proved, once again, that he is a very capable and knowledgeable person who can be trusted as President.

Obama landed some good punches, including a triple rendering of “You were wrong,” referring to John McCain’s Iraq war judgement. Obama also hit McCain, after McCain critisized Obama for openly endorsing an attack on Al-Queda forces in Pakistan, by dismissing McCain’s foreign policy credibility, especially after “singing songs about bombing Iran.”

McCain also scored some by trying to paint Obama as inexperienced, saying several times throughout the debate, that Obama “just does not understand.” However, he appeared dismissive and condescending toward Obama.

Next stop is the Vice-Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. We will be there!